TheCable

Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, has warned the military against its plan to deploy soldiers in the south-west because of the menace of the Badoo gang.

The cult group has been involved in several killings in Ogun and Lagos states.

Sani Usman, army spokesman, had said the soldiers would tackle the menace of the gang.

But speaking at the end of a meeting in Ondo, Yinka Odumakin, publicity secretary of Afenifere, said the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the police have already put the group in check.

He said deploying soldiers to tackle internal crisis in the country could mean inviting the military to take over the government.

Odumakin added that the development could also send wrong signals to foreign investors.

“The operation ostensibly, they said, is to confront the Badoo menace. We stated that the Badoo gang has been decimated by the Nigeria police and the Oodua Peoples Congress in the area where it has occurred and we think if the group resurfaces, it is the duty of the police to deal with it without causing tension, invasion and harassment as it happened in the south-east during ‘Operation Python Dance’,” he said in a statement.

“We insist that the military has no duty in going after Badoo even if it comes back. We want the federal government to be careful with the spate at which it deploys soldiers all over the country.

“The other day, the speaker of the house of representative lamented that 28 out of the 36 states of the country are under one military operation or the other. The south-west has been adjudged the most peaceful area of the country. To now bring military here is to say that the entire country is not safe.

“They are sending a wrong signal to foreign investors and more importantly, the federal government should be reminded that before the coup of 1966, this was how the Balewa government started to transfer civil duty to military and the military now said they could take it themselves.”