President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed three ways his administration would curb banditry and killings in South-West Region of Nigeria.
Buhari mentioned these steps during a closed-door meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja with the South-West traditional rulers led by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi.
The three ways as mentioned by the president include Air Force to bomb criminals’ locations, the cooperation of traditional rulers to monitor different communities and community policing.
The president while explaining each of the methods set to tackle the rampaging banditry and killings in South-West Nigeria said; “We will equally continue to bring in our military when needed to complement the work of the police including possible deployment of troops on certain highways on a temporary basis, and the use of the Air Force assets to bomb hideouts where criminals are located.
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“I will be issuing directives to the appropriate federal authorities to speedily approve licensing for states requesting the use of drones to monitor forests and other criminal hideouts. We also intend to install CCTVs on highways and other strategic locations so that activities in some of those hidden places can be exposed, more effectively monitored and open to actionable review.”
Speaking on community policing, President Buhari stated that, “We hope that, for instance, traditional rulers would be able to observe new entrants into the community by requesting leaders of such ethnic groups to notify the traditional authorities of intakes, thereby creating the opportunities for the gathering of actionable intelligence which tracks such movements in and out of communities thereby offering early warning signals.
“Some of these interventions include an expedited commencement of community policing, a robust revamping of police intelligence gathering capacity and the significant boosting of the numbers of security personnel in our local communities.”