- Call for withholding of Governor’s security votes in flash point states
From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
Commercial vehicle owners in Onitsha, Anambra state have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to declare a state of emergency on security in Nigeria in order to stem the tide of violent crimes and ensure a safer highway for road users and transporters in the country.
A stakeholder in the transport business in Onitsha based and a security analyst, Chief Dominic Okafor who spoke yesterday decried the spate of kidnappings and other violent crimes on the highway across the country, and called for withholding of the Governor’s security votes in states where such deadly violent crimes are prevalent, until they sit up to combat the scourge.
Okafor who spoke in the wake of reported attack on a commercial bus belonging to a popular transporter in Onitsha whom gunmen killed the driver and kidnapped all the passengers except a little boy along the Benin Lagos highway said that it is time for the federal government to declare a state of emergency on security on Nigeria.
He regretted that the police, army and other security agencies would mount roadblocks on the highways and would be concentrating on collecting tolls from motorists, whereas armed robberies and kidnapping operations would be ongoing 100 yards away without any intervention.
“In the past weeks, over 20 commercial buses had been waylaid and their passengers either killed or kidnapped on the highway without security agencies’ intervention in resolving this dangerous trend. That’s too bad,’ he lamented.
Chief Okafor queried whether the police and army are complicit with criminals in making the highways too dangerous to travel in.
As a matter of national security emergency, he advocated for the police, army and other security agencies to be equipped with operational patrol vehicles, armoured cars, walkie-talkies, drones and other logistics, including prompt payment of duty allowances to security personnel on duty.
He pointed out that armed robberies and kidnapping of innocent passengers in commercial buses had become rampant in states like Edo, Delta, Kogi and Abuja, while passengers see hell on those routes.
He called the governors of those states, and the bosses of security agencies in their domain to sit up and tackle the security challenges or resign from their offices and make room for more competent hands to take over and fight highway crimes to make the roads safe again.