The Ondo state Commissioner of Police, Wilfred Afolabi, has attributed the prevailing surge in criminality in the state to the unchecked and consistent migration of people into the state.
Afolabi stated this during an interactive session organised by the state Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), tagged: “The Platform”
According to the police boss, the rate at which people are migrating, and relocating Q the state contributed to the prevailing security challenges especially, kidnapping.
He noted that the migrants have taken over all the forest in the state and the entire land in Benue State with thousands of people displaced.
He said: “There are lot of people migrating, relocating to the Southern part of the country and they are coming in hundreds and thousands, and there is no directive coming from anywhere that this movement should be checked.
“So, there is no doubt about it that the rate at which people are migrating, relocating into Ondo state is further worsening the prevailing security challenges we have.
The police commissioner said the command has been able to flush out a lot of criminal elements, particularly in Owo and Akoko in the last two months with the help of modern technologies.
“So, what I had to do was to get a private tracker. And when the guy came, he was deployed along with almost six tactical teams.
“In the process, at least we had close to 10 confirmed suspected kidnappers that were arrested and they are in our custody presently,” the Commissioner said.
He, however, warned criminals, particularly kidnappers to stay off Ondo State as the Police and other security agencies in the state are poised not give them a breathing space.
He listed some of the challenges of the command in carrying out their duties in terms of patrol vehicles and other logistics needed for smooth operations.
The Commissioner explained that if the command is equipped with hi-tec devices including drone, trackers and other devices for lawful interception, fighting crimes in the state would be done seamlessly.
According to him, the command needs assistance from government and other stakeholders in the state in terms of provision of patrol vans and repair of grounded patrol vehicles for timely and effective response to distress calls.
The Commissioner said: “We can’t use orthodox method to address present security challenges. Most of our vehicles are grounded.
“The refurbishing are ongoing through the financial assistance of the people. We need Military drone that can go 50km, live tracking devices to get the location where criminals are hiding, Lawful Intersection (LI), fueling of vehicles among others.
“Now, kidnapping has gone highly sophisticated and you can confirm it from anybody. We can’t use the same old method, or maybe the approach of the 70s or the 80s or even the 90s to address this present security challenges.
“In a lot of states where they are having successes and breakthroughs, they have hi-tech machines, drones, Lawful Intersection machine (LI), life tracking but here, we don’t have them.
“So, most times, what we rely on, whenever there is any incident of kidnapping, you deploy your men into the bush, to comb the bush. That is archaic and you hardly can achieve much success.”
Afolabi however, attributed the success recorded by the command to the synergy with other sister security agencies in the state.
He said following the directive of the Inspector–General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun that all Commissioners of Police should ensure that they do periodic training and retraining of their officers, saying the command under his watch has trained various investigative personnel and it will continue periodically to achieve the needed results.
The commissioner, however, disclosed that efforts made so far by the command in terms of relations with the people have started yielding positive results.
He said the People Safety Partnership initiative he introduced when he assured duty in the state a couple of months ago through which he met with residents of violence-prone communities on intelligence gathering is already paying off.
The Police Commissioner, therefore, called on the people of the state to always contact the police whenever they suspect any strange faces and suspicious movements in their areas.
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