Ikorodu LGA donates three vehicles for joint security patrol

Etim Ekpimah

Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State has provided security agencies with three utility vehicles to boost capacity for joint patrol to curb crimes in the area, the chairman of the council, Wasiu Adesina, has said.

Speaking during a stakeholders’ meeting at the council’s secretariat in Ikorodu, Adesina said his administration was committed to the safety of life and property of all the residents by ensuring that people sleep with their two eyes closed.

Community leaders; the police; Army, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA); Immigration, Civil Defence and Department of State Services (DSS); Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC), and the local vigilante group (Onyabo), attended the meeting.

“Criminalities and cultism have placed Ikorodu on black spot. These days, cult groups are not attacking one another, they kill innocent people and sometimes passers-by.

“Ikorodu LGA will do everything in its power to ensure that the menace is reduced to the barest minimum.

“This is why we hold this meeting; whatever the resolution, we will flag it off immediately,” Adesina said.

According to Adesina, the council provided the three utility vehicles to boost capacity for joint patrol of the entire area by all the security agencies.

He praised the police and the local vigilante group (Onyabo) for their prompt actions and response during the recent mayhem unleashed by rival cult groups in Ikorodu.

The chairman urged the security agencies to renew their modes of operations to curb crimes and provide security for people in carrying out their daily activities.

The Divisional Police Officer, Igbogbo Police Station, CSP Aderemi Balogun, urged the community leaders to collaborate with the police on intelligence gathering.

Balogun appealed to the community leaders to provide information that would help the police in facilitating arrest and prosecution of criminals.

He said: “There should be cooperation between the communities and traditional institutions. The traditional institutions should rise up and say no to cultism in a collective effort.

“Community leaders should collaborate with security agencies by providing useful information that can lead to the arrest of criminals; they live together with you.

“You should also be ready to testify against them during prosecution at the courts to make the issue of cultism a thing of the past.

“We have fewer number of police personnel compared to our population.

“Government has initiated community policing, most of the trained constabulary would be posted at strategic points.

“There should be collaboration from the public to flush out criminals from the society.”

Mr Lukman Shonibare, Chairman, Ikorodu Community Development Committee (CDC), called for total ban on motorcycles, which he said is the major transport means used by hoodlums to perpetrate crimes.

Shonibare said the activities of commercial motorcycles and tricycles should be curtailed and streamlined by obtaining their biometric data for profiling and tracking them, should any be involved in criminal activities.

Adesina, later constituted a nine-member stakeholders’ committee to formulate mode of operations of the joint security taskforce and promised to sustain their operations.