…Visits victims, says police studying CCTV footage of attacks
…Pledges to support victims’ families
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ollowing the aborted robbery attacks on Keystone Bank in Igarra last week that claimed the lives of six people, including a Police Inspector, two civilians and three armed robbery suspects, Edo state Government will train 1800 youths in the state to help forestall future attacks of this nature.
Of the eighteen hundreds, 100 youths will be trained in each of the eighteen Local Government Areas of the state.
Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, made the disclosure on Monday while visiting with victims of the failed Igarra bank robbery attacks in Igarra, Akoko Edo Local Government Area of the state.
During the condolence visit, Obaseki said his administration would support the families of those who died in the robbery and take care of the burial cost.
According to him, government’s decision to train 100 youths from each local government area of the state is to strengthen the state’s security architecture.
He disclosed that the police were studying the footage of the Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras in the bank that was attacked, for lead to the other members of the criminal gang that escaped during the exchange of fire with the police.
At a town hall meeting in Igarra, the governor restated his administration’s readiness to protect lives and property of Edo people and residents, adding: “As a government we need to critically look at the situation and ensure it will not happen again. Our primary mandate is to protect life and property. I am here with heads of the security agencies to get first-hand information and ensure such an incident doesn’t happen again.”
He disclosed that he would be visiting “the Inspector General of Police in Abuja to give us a special squad to help us eliminate these heinous crimes.”
He further said that he has held meetings with the governors of some of the neighboring states on the need to form a border patrol team that will strengthen security in our communities.
Obaseki said the state was set to launch the security architecture which has received huge professional input, and decried the role of the police officer who arrested and detained some persons that were killed by the robbers, when they attacked the police station.
He assured that the police officer would be charged to court, as his motive was to extort money from the citizens.
Obaseki appealed to the two banks in the locality to reopen for business promising to beef up security for their operations.
The governor earlier visited a victim of the attack at Alafia Specialist Clinic and another victim, Obende Shakede, who sustained bullet wound at his residence on Momodu Ajayi Road. He was also at the bank to inspect the havoc done by the robbers.
The Chairman of Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, Hon. Don Umoro, thanked the governor for the visit, stressing that the incident happened at a time when the area was almost getting used to enduring peace after the last attack in 2015.
The community representative, Sunday Mayaki, called on the government to help fence the police station to hinder easy access and urged the governor to help strengthen community vigilante group to assist security agencies in the area.
