How Edo Residents Partner Terrorists in Kidnapping Business, Govt Reveals, says 1,000 Forest Guards Being Recruited to Comb Bushes

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Amidst worsening insecurity in Edo State, the government disclosed on Wednesday that some residents had been aiding and abetting the spate of kidnappings in the state by harbouring herders and suspected terrorists in their houses.

Festus Ebea, Commissioner for Public Safety and Security, disclosed this at a press briefing alongside the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kassim Afegbua, and his Transportation counterpart, Saturday Uwuilekhue.

Ebea also disclosed that the state government would be recruiting 1,000 forest guards as part of measures to combat kidnapping.
Alleging that the suspects now “rear human beings as if they are rearing animals,” Ebea disclosed that those behind the harbouring of the herders and terrorists have been arrested including the suspects and accomplices.

The former deputy speaker of the state House of Assembly further alleged that suspected kidnappers, who were arrested, confessed to how they were brought in and accommodated in their houses.

According to him, “Unfortunately, from our security lenses, we have found out that some of our people now keep herders and the terrorists in their houses and point out to them where there is business to do.
“Some suspects are at the station having been arrested. Both the accomplices and the kidnappers themselves confessed to how they were brought in and housed.

“Of course, when they take people they take them into the bush and begin to “rear human beings as if they are rearing cows,” he said.
On the planned recruitment of 1,000 forest guards, the commissioner said 500 of the forest guards that have already been recruited were currently undergoing training at the Police Training School, Benin City, while plans were underway for the recruitment of an additional 500 in line with the directive of President Bola Tinubu.

The commissioner said special attention would be given to local government areas like Etsako East, Etsako where some communities have witnessed the influx and the attack in the bushes of those neighbouring states like Kogi, Kwara, and Ondo.

He added that, “In Etsako West, we have the Igbira camp. We have the Akoko Edo where we have so many mineral deposits, and of course, Etsako East where we have huge numbers of those being taken by these criminal elements.

“We equally have the Ovia North-East and Ovia South-West local governments where they equally have people who come from the other end and use the water to infiltrate and take some of our members of the Edo community away.

“We are working towards ensuring that we beef up the figures of the forest guard who will now be in the bush and secure our farmers, secure our bushes and equally make sure that the bushes are unsafe for those elements.”

Also speaking, Afegbua, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, reacted to alleged concentration of many projects in the governor’s hometown, Idomi, explaining that because of the closeness of that particular axis to Delta State, and essentially occupying a very large expanse of uninhabited land, “kidnapping became so rampant in that place, so, we needed to generate activity”.

The information commissioner said, “that was part of the reason and the rationale for putting a barrack in that place to checkmate all of that and also put school of nursing and health technology.”
According to Afegbua, “So, by the time activities are taking off in that area, then, the issue of kidnapping would be a thing of the past. And we are achieving that result already. So, I just needed to give that clarification.”

Speaking about his ministry, Uwuilekhue said the state government had procured. additional 50 buses to the existing 100 buses of New Edo Line to ease the inter-state mobility of Edo residents.”