Due to the view of the rising cases of Banditry and kidnapping along the major highways in Edo State, indigenes and residents of the State are beginning to ask pertinent questions concerning the measures being put in place by the Government to check this ugly trend as lives and properties are no longer safe, visitors no longer move freely without the fear of being kidnapped.
An Indigene and a concerned citizen of the State, Hon. Jolly Obozuwa has challenged the State Government to declare a State of Emergency before residents and indigenes will become tenants in their own land.
Speaking with SCHOLARNET NAIJA, he recalled the Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki’s answer to his question during the Town Hall Meeting with Edo Indigenes in Lagos, where he asked the Governor, “Sir, what is your Government’s security strategy approach to curtailing the exodus of Fulani Herdsmen and Bandits into Edo State, with a case study of a newly created laby truck park before Okada Town, along Benin-Lagos Expressway and Aviele before Auchi, knowing fully that the locations are dangerous to travellers, now that kidnapping and armed robbery is a common phenomenon on our roads”. According to Honourable Jolly Obozuwa Oshokha, the Governor replied saying, “the government is working tirelessly and have put the necessary security measures into place to check the criminality in those axes and his second term result will be evident to the questions he raised”. His Deputy, Mr Philip Shaibu also promised the people present at the Town Hall Meeting that upon assumption of office for his second term in Office, insecurity will be a thing of the past.
Hon. Jolly decried the increasing rate of insecurity in the State as the Fulani Herdsmen have taken over the forests in the State, unleashing mayhem on travellers plying the Major roads like Benin-Auchi road, Auchi-Okene road.
He sighted the kidnap cases of Human Rights Activists, Barrister Mike Ozekhome (SAN), the killing of the Former Etsako East Local Government Chairman and the recent kidnapping of an American Based Business Man and a Member of St. John’s College Old Boys Association, High Chief Dennis Abuda.
Honorable Jolly Obozuwa asked the Governor to follow the steps of his counterpart in Ondo State by passing a law asking the Herdsmen to vacate all the Forest in Edo State, as it has turned out to be their hiding place after being chased out of the neighboring Ondo State, with the Fulanis taking over the streets, cities and in no distant time, they will take over the Farms in the State.
Today the eastern part of Nigeria has started evacuating the Fulani headsmen from their community by enforcing their Biafra vigilante group in some part of the community see video attachment :
