Insecurity: Edo recruits 1,000 forest guards

The Edo State Government on Wednesday announced that it had recruited 500 forest guards to secure the state’s forests and farmlands against kidnapping and banditry.

The state government added that an additional 500 personnel would soon be added to the recruitment list in line with a directive from the National Security Adviser to President Bola Tinubu, Malam Nuhu Ribadu.

Addressing a joint press conference alongside two other commissioners, the Commissioner for Public Security and Safety, Festus Ebea, who made the announcement, said the forest guards, when fully recruited, would make the forests their base.

The two other commissioners at the press conference were the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kassim Afegbua, and the Commissioner for Transportation, Saturday Uwuilekhue.

Ebea said the 1,000 forest guard posts would be situated in the forests, with special attention to border areas with states such as Kogi, Ondo and Delta, as well as special areas in Etsako and Akoko-Edo where mineral resources abound.

“These guards offices will be in the bushes of Edo State. Based on the area, special attention is given to some neighboring communities where we have the influx and attacks in the bushes of neighboring states like Kogi, Ondo.

“We are also paying special attention to some local government such as Akoko-Edo where you have so much of mineral deposits, and of course Etsako East and Etsako West where we have the Igbera camp. And the two Ovia where we have people from the other end who use the water ways to infiltrate and take residents of the state hostage. Of course every part of the state would be captured.”

“On Saturday, I received a call from the Presidency that Edo should increase its number from 500 to 1000, and we are implementing that soon,” Ebea stated.

The commissioner, who lamented the menace of drug abuse and consumption of other harmful substances among the youth of the state, said his ministry was working closely with all security agencies and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to tackle the problem.

On his part, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Afegbua, debunked the narrative that Governor Okpebholo was concentrating capital projects in his Udomi town, adding that the government’s infrastructural development cuts across the state.

Afegbua added that most of the government’s construction activities in Udomi, especially the Mobile Police barracks, were informed by the need to curtail the incursion of criminals into the state because of the area’s proximity to a neighbouring state.

“That particular axis, because it’s neighboring closely with Delta State, and essentially, you know, occupying a very large expanse of uninhabited land, kidnapping became so rampant in that place.

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“So, we needed to generate activity. And that was part of the reason and the rationale for putting a barrack in that place, to checkmate all of that, and also put school of nursing and health technology.

“By the time activities are taking off in that area, then, the issue of kidnapping would be a thing of the past. And we are achieving that result already. So, I just needed to give that clarification,” Afegbua said.

Speaking about his ministry, Uwuilekhue said the state government had procured an additional 50 buses to add to the existing 100 buses of New Edo Line to ease inter-state mobility for residents of Edo State.