Peace Agency urges collaborative efforts to fight cultism,kidnapping

Mr Joseph Lengman, the Director-General, Plateau State Peace Building Agency (PSPBA), has called for collaborative efforts to combat the high rate of cultism, gangsterism and other crimes in the state.

Lengman made the call on Tuesday in Jos at the agency’s quarterly Justice Security and Dialogue meeting for security actors with the theme: “Collaborative Approaches to Ending Security Threats to Communal Peace ”.

He said that members of the society including parents, ethnoreligious leaders and security agencies must collaborate to put an end to the menace.

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He expressed worry that the relative peace being experienced in Plateau was being threatened by the resurgence of social problems which must be addressed for the progress of the state.

” We need to galvanise support to deal with issues that can disrupt peace before they get violent.

The director-general said that the state was working toward establishing local peace inclusive structure where community members involving women, youths and ethnoreligious leaders would assess security situations in their various communities.

“Members of the group will be trained to not only detect early warning signal on conflict but also on crime to avert them, ” he said.

In his remarks, the Plateau Commissioner of Police, Isaac Akinyomede, said security challenges in the state would affect every sector of the community.

Represented by Tafida Saleh, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, operations, said that kidnapping was getting rampant in Shendam and Qu’anpan local government areas, saying close friends and relations were mostly engaged in such crime.

” Kidnappers are aided by close people through giving information to use for such acts. People should be careful disclosing information and we have increased the number of checkpoints at Jengre and Jos road axis where reports of such cases were on the increase, ” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that grassroots security agencies such as neighbourhood watch and vigilantes who attended the occasion urged parents to inculcate good values in their children and expose criminals living amongst them.

Baba Lawal, an official of the neighbourhood watch in Nasarawa-Gwong community in Jos North Local Government Area, called for more stringent punitive measures against criminals in order to serve as a deterrent to others.

NAN reports that the meeting was supported by the United States Institute of Peace in partnership with the West Africa Network for Peace Building.