S
enior Advocate of Nigeria
(SAN), Mr. Femi Falana, has
said that the Attorney Gener-
al’s statement concerning Op-
eration Amotekun is diversionary and
hypocritical.
The human rights lawyer stated this
while featuring as a guest on a national
television recently.
Falana said, “In this case, the state-
ment credited to the Attorney General
of the Federal Government is clearly
diversionary and hypocritical. Hypo-
critical in the sense that the govern-
ments of Kano and Zamfara states
have set up HISBAH Commission and
just recently, the HISBAH operatives
in Zamfara State arrested a police of-
ficer alleged to have been caught in
the midst of three women.”
Speaking further, Falana noted that
in the northeast zone, there is a civil-
ian JTF made up of 26000 volunteers
armed to assist the military in waging
the counter-insurgence operations.
Citing other examples, the rights ac-
tivist stated that in Lagos state there
is the neighborhood watch created by
law, an organization that he argues is
working and assisting the police to ad-
dress security challenges in the state.
According to Falana, it is disturb-
ing that the Attorney General of the
Federal Government can say that his
legal opinion was not sought, stressing
that there is no constitutional nexus
between the Attorney General of the
Federal Government and the state
governments in that each state of the
Federal Republic has its own Attorney
General.
He argued that to talk of the Attor-
ney General of the Federation is a mis-
nomer, a carry-over from the military
era. Falana explained that Mr. Malami
is the Attorney General of the Feder-
al Government in Abuja while other
states have their own Attorney Gener-
als to advise the government.
Having said this, the Senior Advo-
cate surmised that the AGF has no
power to proscribe any organisation
in Nigeria.
