Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has said that recruitment into the South-West Security outfit, Amotekun, may take off this week, while their operations will take off three weeks from now.

Akeredolu who is also the chairman of the South-West Governors Forum said this via his Special Adviser on Security Matters, Alhaji Jimoh Dojumo.

He said, “All arrangements have been finalised. The training of the personnel will last for 21 days but there will be more training and retraining for them.

“The security agencies will train those recruited. The recruitment and training will go together.”

Dojumo, a retired police officer, added, “We are being very careful to avoid flaws. The recruitment may start next week (this week) and immediately after the recruitment training will start.

“But our target time is before the end of March you will see them patrolling roads in the South-West.”

Kwara State, geographically a North Central State, although having a very sizeable Yoruba population is yet to join the Amotekun idea. Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State however said he would welcome any measures to protect the State’s borders, but is yet to enter into any formal agreement with the South-West.

“Security is a dynamic issue that requires collaboration and intelligence sharing among all stakeholders,” the governor said through his Chief Press Secretary, Rafiu Ajakaye, as saying on Saturday. However, we currently do not have any formal arrangement to key into the Amotekun initiative. As a government, we will work with other sub-national and national governments to continue to keep Kwara safe.”