From Tony Osauzo, Benin
Worried by the high insecurity on the Benin-Auchi road, the Edo State Government has commenced consultations with communities along the route, urging cooperation for normalcy to be restored.
It cautioned the communities against conniving with criminals.
Recall that Youths of Ehor in Uhunmwonde Local Government Area had last week barricaded the road as a result of frequent abductions and murders in that axis.
At the meeting with community leaders, youths and other stakeholders in Ehor, Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu, leading heads of security agencies, said the state government got more information that would complement the security architecture Governor Godwin Obaseki has already initiated.
‘We came here for a fact-finding mission, we already have a security architecture that the governor is already working to deal with this menace. Youths last week protested here and we needed to come down to the community to actually know what the issues are and how to deal with them. We have discovered that the issue of security has to be localised and in localising it, you must hear directly from the people.
‘We have the information, we need to understand it deeply and fortunately for us, some of the things we have put in place are some of the solutions they are suggesting to us and we have learnt one or two other things that we needed to add to the security architecture. We are good to go and what we have agreed is that we all have to domesticate every aspect of dealing with security,’ he added.
Also speaking, the state Commissioner of Police, Philip Ogbadu, cautioned the community against conniving with the suspected criminals but called for information to help check the insecurity in the area even as he promised increased police presence in the area.
‘Also, we need information from the communities because to us, it appears that there are some community members that have more information and we have impressed on them to give us information and if there is anybody benefitting from it, we want the community to open up and search within so that if there is any deviant benefitting from what is happening, we will know and bring them to book,’ he said.