I will not be a governor who allows criminals to run amok unchecked, says Gov. Bello

The Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello has said that he will not be a Governor who allows criminals to run amok unchecked while he runs around wringing his hands helplessly and blaming the President, the Inspector-General of Police, the Service Chiefs or whoever.

The governor stated this on Monday when the Inspector General of Police IGP Usman Alkali Baba visited him in Government House Lokoja.

According to him, he decided very early as a Governor to take full responsibility for events in his State, including the provision of security to the inhabitants of every nook and cranny thereof.

“I determined that as long as the President has given me the contingents of law enforcement assets accruing to Kogi State, I will not be a Governor who allows criminals to run amok unchecked while he runs around wringing his hands helplessly and blaming the President, the Inspector-General of Police, the Service Chiefs or whoever.

“Nigerians may also want to know that the vast majority of our policemen, military officers and other law enforcement officers are not cowards. They are intelligent and diligent patriots who often ask for nothing more than the right tools to do their jobs well and a little motivation to give us their utmost. We simply met those needs and we are happily seeing the best of our men and women in uniform. Any gap you see anywhere is simply the usual room for improvement which we are working on.

“It is well known that prior to the inception of the current administration, our citizens lived in perpetual fear from rampaging insecurity of all kinds including high rates of terrorism, kidnapping, bank robbery, violent political agitations, pipeline vandalism, herdsmen/farmers conflicts, inter- and intra-communal clashes, campus and other forms of cultism, amongst others.

He mentioned that by the grace of God, over the last 7 years his Administration has done its best to supply both the tools and the allied morale boosters that our officers need to excel.

He noted that although doing so took a huge toll on their resources, in his first year they were able to buy and distribute over 200 patrol vans, over 500 motorcycles and thousands of communications and tactical equipment to the service, stressing that they have also continued to provide regular maintenance and logistical support.

“In addition, we established a Joint Task Force, Operation Total Freedom, for them which allowed the Police, the Armed Forces and all the other Security Services, including our community policing network the Kogi State Vigilante Services, to work in tandem, sharing intel and collaborating real-time in operations. In this way, we were able to tackle the distrust existing among the services and which is the root of the lack of synergy hampering their effectiveness.

He said their efforts have led to a huge decline in the high violent crime statistics that we inherited.

He noted that by January 2016, Kogi State was the worst violent crime hub in the country outside the North East and the capital of highway kidnapping in Nigeria but by January 2018, they had transformed her into the ‘second most peaceful state in the country and ‘the state with the second lowest crime statistics in Nigeria’ according to the National Peace Index and the National Bureau of Statistics, among other rating agencies.

ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE