Nobel
Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has cautioned that the Western Nigeria Security
Network, Amotekun, must not turn into
another special anti-robbery squad SARS.
Soyinka stated this at the weekend
during a guest appearance on ARISE TV.
He advocated frequent training for the Amoteku Corps to prevent them from killing citizens illegally.
The Nobel Laureate spoke against the backdrop
of recent deaths of citizens allegedly carried out by members of the Amotekun
Corps in the South West.
Soyinka said: “Community
policing like Amotekun is a recognition of the fact that the civic part of the
entire national polity has got to wake up in not just its own defense but
survival.
“I have told them anytime you want us to
come and assist, we will come even if it is just on the ethical session so that
as you are training them to defend us, we are also training their minds so that
Amotekun does not become another SARS, very important. We must do everything
together.
“It is about time the public examined itself; what are we made up of? Are there
those among us who, if they got into power, will behave exactly as those kinds
of agencies which we are repudiating and against which we are protesting? There
is absolutely no excuse for the brutality that occurred in the wake of the
noise, rumour, reality of people being shot at the Lekki tollgate.”
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