From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
Women from Agan community, a suburb in Makurdi, the Benue State on Friday, blocked the Makurdi/Lafia Highway in numbers to protest against what they termed as indiscriminate arrest of their children in the area.
The protesting women who poured into the road in their thousands as early as 6 am on Friday said they were aggrieved with the way security operatives in the state were arresting their children without going after the criminal and terrorist herders in the state.
One of the protesters who identified herself simply as Nguyan said there had been indiscriminate arrest of youths in the area in recent times.
Nguyan said, “Many of our children have been arrested in the past few days, security men would just swooped on this community arresting our youths without any reason.
Reacting to the protest, the Benue State Police Command cautioned the public against any protest saying su h act was capable of distracting its ‘clearing operations’ ongoing across the state.
The Commissioner of Police in the state CP Ifeanyi Emenari in statement issued by the Police Public Relations Officer PPRO, DSP Udeme Edet, called members of the public to assist the command with useful information that would help the command in its operation.
The statement titled, “The Benue Sate Police command is currently carrying out operations across the state to clampdown on criminals and ensure the safety of lives and property.
“These operations are gradually yielding results as evident in the arrest of suspects and destruction of criminal hideouts around Apa, Guma, Gwer-west, Sankera axis and other areas.
“As part of support for operatives in the field, members of the public are requested to avail the police with useful information rather than distract the police ongoing focused clearance operations with any form of protest.
” Assembling people for protests at this time is distracting the police from engaging criminals as logistic attention will shift to protection of protesters thereby creating room for criminality to continue thriving .Also, such assembly could be hijacked by hoodlums to perpetuate mayhem.
The Commissioner explained that the command was in the last lap of the exercise expressing it’s commitment to create lasting peace in the state.
He said the ongoing operations were in synergy with all sister security agencies in the state and with the support of the State Government and other security stakeholders within and outside the state.
Enemari however warned members of the public to desist from assembling themselves to join any form of protest that is capable of endangering the lives and cause unnecessary distractions to the ongoing operations.
He encouraged to support all police operations in their communities as security is everybody’s responsibility,” the statement concluded.