Edo State government officials on Monday, met with traditional, religious and community leaders in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area to chart a path on the new community-based security scheme in the area.
This is coming at the heels of deployment of 877 of the 2000 community constables who graduated recently at the Nigeria Police Training School – with the main focus of working with local community security groups to ensure that criminals are flushed out of the communities.
Addressing stakeholders at the meeting, the Commissioner of Police, Edo State, Mr Babatunde Kokumo, conveyed approval of deployment of the police constables who had their passing out parade on Saturday.
He said the operatives were drawn from the various communities in Ikpoba-Okha LGA and its environs, adding that a joint patrol team, comprising the military, operatives of Department of State Security, and Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps will provide additional security to the communities.
“I have also promised the Local Government Chairman that we are also going to have the police constables who had their passing out parade on Saturday here. They were drawn from the various communities”, Mr Kokumo stated.
“There is a downward trend of crime and criminality in this community. We are living no stone unturned towards ensuring that we dominate the public space.
“We are having a joint patrol team, comprising the military, the Army, DSS and the NSCDC”, he added.
Mr Kokumo, warned that “never again will anybody attack any police personnel in Edo State. Enough is enough; we will no longer fold our arms or allow criminal elements to open fire on our men. Our personnel will use their arms professionally. We have a justification to use our firearms when a life is in danger.”
Chairman of Ikpoba-Okha LGA, Dr. Eric Osayande, who spoke to journalists after the meeting, said: “The Governor had given us a directive that we must call all the Odionwere, Enigie, Oka-Idun and other stakeholders to ask them to go back to the traditional methods of vigilante.”
“We have recruited 70 vigilante to complement the efforts of conventional security apparatus in the Local Government”, he added.