Ondo Amotekun parades 43 kidnap suspects, others
By Tola Gbadamosi
In its continued efforts to rid Ondo State of criminal elements, Commander of the state Security Network Agency Codenamed Amotekun Corps, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, has paraded a total of 43 suspected criminals arrested from the 18 local government areas of the state.
The Amotekun Boss while parading the suspects, hinted that the criminals include kidnap suspects, adding that they were picked from various operations across the 18 local government areas of Ondo State.
While expressing worry over the upsurge of in kidnap incidents, he revealed, that about half of the 43 suspects are kidnappers.
“We actually have over 50, but those that we have reasons to question and what we found on them around the scenes of kidnap across the state are these 20 you are seeing today.
“I want to trace this to the heavy presence of security personnel in Ekiti and I want to believe that they are being driven to Ondo State, but we want to tell you that Ondo State can never be a safe haven for criminals.
“We have risen up to the challenge and all of them that we have picked at the kidnap scenes as well as the victims who are around to identify some of them are the ones we are parading today.
” We also have some that were arrested with local arms and they were not able to justify what they want to do with the arms and ammunition.
” This week, we have a sharp decline in the number of house breaking because we have now commenced foot walk especially on Sundays when people would have gone to church and during the working hours when people are at work.
“We now walk and trek around the metropolis, I think this is one of the reasons why the decline in the number of shop breaking. As against the back drop of sharp decline in herders destruction of farm lands in the northern part of the state, we have an increase in the number of herders-farmers clashes and this are the areas where we have security breaches.
“We still have issues with security challenges on our borders especially the Kogi-Ondo border, Edo-Ondo border. We are working on it and we are collaborating. In actual fact, as at yesterday morning, a combined team of security men from Kogi and Ondo State, precisely the Army and policemen from Ondo and Kogi states and Amotekun men from Ondo combined to fish out the perpetrators of the last kidnap across Akunu-Ayere axis.
“Ayere is in Kogi while Akunnu is in Ondo. The actual news trending on social media happened in those 2 communities and we have been raising alarm that in places where we don’t have the grassroot security which is the local security that we can work with, we have been having issues in such areas.
“Like I earlier stated, in the last 72 hours all security agencies in kogi and Ondo are involved in the search including the DSS, civil defense, police, Amotekun of both Kogi and Ondo. We are involved in the search of the fleeing kidnappers.
” We have been able to go this far because the governor of Ondo State, Mr Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa specifically gave a directive that we must fish out all those perpetrators of evil in the border towns.
The Governor had further directed, that all security agencies must ensure that there is no security breach, especially the coming weeks that the funeral programmes of our late governor, the father of Amotekun in the southwest, late Oluwarotimi Akeredolu would begin.
“It behooves on us to guide against any form of security breach to ensure that people come in happily and freely to celebrate the exit of an icon that all of us know.
He attributed the general upsurge in criminal activities to various reasons like; economic hardship and a lot of other factors. In the southwest, he said the statistics in criminal rate compared to other zones is very low, saying in one week, the Corps have been able to rake in about 50 suspected criminals ready to go to court.
On whether Amotekun is overwhelmed over recent upsurge of crimes, he responded, that “the Corps can’t be overwhelmed.
“lt is just a reflection of what is happening in the society and Ondo State in the southwest cannot be exonerated from part of Nigeria, but I assure you, that we remain resolute in providing adequate security in conjunction with all other security agencies.
“The synergy we have with all other security agencies in Ondo State is one of the major factors responsible for what you are seeing today. Ondo State is one of those states that could be acclaimed to be one of the safest in the country”, he stated.