There are strong indications the South-West states will train vigilantes, hunters and members of the Oodua Peoples Congress who will take part in the Western Nigeria Security Outfit codenamed Operation Amotekun (leopard), which will be launched on Thursday.
The training, The PUNCH learned on Monday, would enhance the relationship between the groups and security agencies that would be directly involved in the operation.
It was gathered that although members of the Yoruba groups, including the OPC, hunters, and vigilantes, would not join the patrols by security agencies, they had been slated for intelligence gathering.
A source, who confided in The PUNCH, said members of the groups would be trained in how to better relate with the police and soldiers.
The Special Adviser to the Ekiti State Governor on Security, Brigadier General Ebenezer Ogundana (retd.), who confirmed this in an interview with one of our correspondents on Monday, said the equipment to be deployed in Operation Amotekun would be upgraded from time to time after the inauguration of the outfit on Thursday.
The South-West governors had, at a security summit organized by the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria, said they would set up the operation, following serial killings and kidnapping in the zone by Fulani herdsmen.
Gunmen, suspected to be herdsmen, had in June killed Funke Olakunri, a daughter of the Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti, on the Ondo-Ore road.
In May, a lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof Olayinka Adegbehingbe, was abducted at the Ikoyi/Apomu junction of the Ibadan-Ife Expressway in Ikire, a border town between Osun and Oyo states.
In his New Year message, the Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, said the security outfit would begin operation on Thursday.
Giving more explanations on Operation Amotekun, Ogundana said vigilantes, the OPC members, and local hunters billed for the operation in terms of gathering information, would be drawn from their communities.
