Osun State Government and a group, Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria on Monday engaged in war of words over the Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Amotekun, even as the group insisted that the security initiative remains part of efforts to Christianise South West.

Addressing newsmen on behalf of the group in Osogbo, Sheikh Abdur’rasheed Hadiyatullah, who was flanked by other prominent members of the body, accused promoters of Amotekun of plotting to have political and religious dominance over Muslims in the region.

Hadiyatullah said:

“It is another elusive way of establishing a Christian-dominated State Police Force whose affairs would be designed and determined from the Church at the expense of the Muslims majority in the region.

“Meanwhile, all the Muslims in the region have been properly advised to remain calm
and law abiding as they used to be in the face of a series of injustice they suffer in a
region where they constitute the majority.

“Instance of this is not lost on record when the Muslims had to be forced to approach a court of law for some Christians in power to allow the Muslims’ children willing to use Hijab to have access to public schools funded from the proceeds of taxes paid by their parents.

“Amotekun is a coinage from Jeremiah Chapter 5: Verse 6 of the Holy Bible, reads, “Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slain them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.”

Demanding that Amotekun be devoid of religious and political influence, the group warned that any form of the Christian agenda camouflaged as a security outfit, such as the
Amolekun, where the Muslims population from the Southwest and in the country at large are target was an act of injustice and should be condemned.

He said issues of security of the people ought not to be premised on the altar of politics
and personal interests, adding that doing such would amount to building an empire on
a mere propaganda and the figment of the imagination of the gullible.

But responding, Chief Press Secretary to Osun State Governor, Ismail Omipidan, said those behind the allegations were peddling the misinformation because they probably did not understand the basis of Amotekun.

Omipidan said, there was no time leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria was part of the meeting when most of these decisions regarding Amotekun was taken.

“And if CAN has never been part of the decision, how will you ascribe it to a particular religion? I think it is important to make that clarification that there is no recruitment based on church birth certificate.

“I may not be able to speak for other people but I’m speaking for Osun state because people who have been addressing the press in the last three weeks have been doing so in Osun and I ask, why Osun? Is there any special interest in Osun?

“So I appeal to our colleague to help us correct this deliberate misinformation. There is no recruitment based on religious bias or a demand that you are asked to go and produce birth certificate from the church,” Omipidan said.