By Ken Chiwendu
In a bid to curb the prevailing security issues in the Federal Capital Territory, the Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command, Olusola Odumosu, has directed officers of the Command to activate the intelligence architecture.
The move he said would make the territory more unbearable for criminals.
The commandant who made this known while speaking to the Command’s personnel in Abuja following the resurgence of kidnapping said: “The criminals are not ghosts, they are members of the various communities we live in. We must therefore intensify efforts by fully activating our intelligence architecture to identify them and ensure they are brought to book.”
Odumosu expressed sadness over the increasing wave of banditry particularly in the outlying regions and hinterlands of the Federal Capital Territory attributing the menace to the city’s porous borders with Nasarawa, Kaduna, and Niger
According to him, crushing the criminals required a joint effort particularly in information gathering from the public and requested personnel to as a matter of urgency, work with the public to stamp out the criminals.
“While our war against vandals is ongoing, we must beam our searchlight on the issue of kidnapping that has become the order of the day in FCT.
“We must work closely with FCT residents at all levels to get credible information and real-time intelligence, which is the key to any successful intervention. Without information to work with, there is little or nothing the security agencies can do. We must, therefore, do all we can to bring an end to insecurity by harnessing our areas of strength and using credible intelligence as a tool.” Odumosu said.
Kidnapping in the FCT has taken a different dimension with reports of abductions occupying front pages of newspapers and the social media every day.
While areas in the heart of the City referred to as highbrow are spared of the wind of abduction, the satellite towns are not so lucky as bandits move in freely to abduct women, children and men for ransom without challenge.
Last year,a Zenith Bank staff was abducted from his house in Bwari and killed.
On January 2, a father and his six daughters and other residents were abducted from their house by the bandits for ransom and when the ransom was reportedly incomplete, the bandits had the audacity to kill the first daughter of the family.
The rest of the family and other residents were released a few days ago by the army after ransom was paid though the army and police have come up with different statements regarding the release.
