Barely 11 days after 17 soldiers and six policemen were separately but gruesomely killed by gunmen in Delta State, the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, Afenifere, has expressed concern over the attacks.
Both the military and the police teams were ambushed by yet-to-be-identified gunmen in the state and 23 security personnel were killed cumulatively.
Posthumously, the President, Bola Tinubu, honoured the gallantry of the soldiers and also promised to take over the schooling bills of the children of the departed military men.
Afenifere in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, appreciated the gesture of the president, adding that banditry kept festering and manifesting in various forms all for six major reasons.
Ajayi further enumerated the reasons as; “People’s attitude, complicity, modus operandi of security agencies, the capacity of security personnel, the judicial processes and requisite political will to frontally confront the challenge.”
Speaking further on the listed items Afenifere said, ” Because of the decreasing communal sense among average Nigerians, many no longer see any need for them to prevent banditry from taking place by reporting to appropriate authorities that could take prompt action in that regard.
“Worse still, many now consider kidnapping as a lucrative business from which they make fabulous amounts of illicit money. Their appetite for the huge sums coming from the nefarious activity has grown so big that they do not mind the incalculable harm they are doing to society or indeed the risk to their own lives. “
The organisation, however, called on the government to pay attention to issues implied in the disclosure by the Chief of Defense Staff during his interview with an international news organisation.
“One is the need to increase the numerical strength of security personnel so that they would be able to sufficiently and efficiently man all areas deserving to be manned.
“Second is the need to have the necessary equipment.”
Ajayi also emphasised the need to expedite action in the creation of state police which will enhance locals to be secured by their own people.
“We again call on President Tinubu to give a Presidential Order proclaiming the immediate establishment of State and Local Government Police and then follow this up with an Executive Bill to the National Assembly for the purpose.
“Thus, we wholeheartedly endorse the instruction by President Bola Tinubu that stakeholders’ meetings be held as disclosed by Senator Lawal Usman (Kaduna Central Senatorial District) after his visit to the President on the heels of the abduction of Kuriga school students recently”.
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