A faction of the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Harnonised Vigilante Group in the South-West have said majority of those being recruited into the planned Western Nigeria Security Network are political thugs and hoodlums.
Worried by the rising insecurity in the region, the six governors in the South-West are planning to set up a security outfit to curb the trend.
But the two groups said most of those being recruited into WNSN were thugs and cultists who worked for politicians during the 2019 elections.
The leader of the OPC (New Era), Rasak Arogundade, and Head, Harnonised Vigilante Group in the South West, Alhaji Rilwan Yaasalam, said in separate interviews with our correspondents that recruiting political hoodlums into the new security outfit would scuttle the intention of the governors.
The Development Agenda for Western Nigeria, which was jointly set up by the southwestern states, is coordinating the take off of the security outfit.
Yaasalam said, “There is problem in the police today because of the bad eggs there. The same thing is happening now concerning the new security outfit in the South-West.
The OPC leader, Arogundade, said the group would work with other factions of the OPC and other security groups but stressed that his group would not work in the same team with the hoodlums.
Arogundade said, “They contacted us initially but they have since sidelined us. The person that is coordinating the activities of the new security outfit has politicised the whole thing.
“We (OPC New Era, OPC Reform and OPC Cosec) are the ones involved. We sent proposal to them and we went to defend the proposal but they have sidelined us now.”
But the Director General of the DAWN, Mr Seye Oyeleye, who queried the intention of the group behind the allegation, simply said, “We don’t recruit in DAWN. Our job is to plan and we have delivered on the agenda to secure the zone to safeguard lives and property of our people.”
