Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka says “Amotekun”, the regional security outfit in the south-west, has come to stay.

Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, had described the outfit as illegal, saying security remains the exclusive preserve of the federal government.

Meanwhile, at a press conference in Lagos on Wednesday, Soyinka, who had earlier described the scheme as a good initiative and an unexpected New Year present, expressed shock by the federal government declaration.

“Our responsibility as a citizen is to take actions against events, phenomenon which militates against our existence, security, productivity and dignity as human beings,” he said.

“This has been a result of collective consciousness by people of this region. These governors met and they came up with this solution, Amotekun. Now, some people who have been sleeping all this time, taking belated actions in many directions, who watched the citizens of this nation decimated, villages wiped out, farmers chased off their land. They are now coming out to tell us that this initiative is illegal, unconstitutional. I think they should go back to sleep.

“I prefer to believe that the government itself has not spoken. I refuse to believe that any serious government will raise any objection to this kind of initiative. Amotekun has come to stay.

“Amotekun is only a part of the story. It should not be the only solution to insecurity. We should move from Amotekun to Awosikun. In other words, we should start thinking in terms of how to feed our own people.”