IMEKO-AFON HOLDS PEACE AND SECURITY MEETING AMID INTELLIGENCE REPORT
The Executive Chairman of Imeko-Afon Local Government, Hon. Theophilus Aremu Olorode, has called on all security operatives, including local vigilante groups, religious and traditional leaders, as well as inhabitants of all border communities within the council area, to be alert and watchful, and to report every suspicious movement, settlement, and relocation of individuals alien to their immediate communities to constituted authorities or through their local leaders.
Hon. Olorode made this charge while addressing men of the Nigerian Armed Forces, the Armorekun Corps, So Safe Corps, Ooduwa People’s Congress (OPC), and the Agbekoyas operating within the Council Area during a security meeting held at the Conference Room of the Secretariat.
The Chairman revealed that the meeting was called based on an intelligence report that bandits are relocating and regrouping in Jabata and Odugbe Forest Reserves—both located in the local government—through Opara Forest Reserve in Oyo State, as a result of the military onslaught currently unleashed on banditry and terrorism in the northern part of the Country.
The security chiefs took turns to pledge their readiness to comb the forest reserves and weed out the bandits through cooperation and collaboration capable of bringing about robust synergy among security formations. However, they unanimously agreed to enthrone proactive preventive strategies to curtail and dislodge these evil elements from the forests, and requested superior firepower, improved numbers of personnel, and all necessary logistics needed to prevent and combat the bandits in the event of eventual hostilities.
While addressing the meeting, HRM Oba Benjamin Alabi Olanite, the Onimeko of Imeko, agreed that resolutions reached at the meeting would be taken down to various Baales to prevent giving land to strangers for money without verifying the individual, purpose, and reasons for relocation to their communities, the results of which would be submitted to the police and local security groups for proper scrutiny and monitoring.
The Onimeko further implored that messages should also be sent to motorists and cyclists to subject themselves, their passengers, and goods to security operatives at checkpoints, as they may be unknowingly conveying bandits and ammunition into the community.
The Secretary to the Local Government, Hon. Abimbola Nafiu Olawale, while giving a vote of thanks, harped on the urgent need to fortify the border communities in Iwoye and Ilara with more military and police personnel and equipment, as these routes are unguarded against the influx of unscrupulous elements from Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, and others, many of whom have caused violence in the past.
Other prominent individuals at the meeting were the Head of Local Government Administration, Barrister ’Lekan Ogunbamowo, and other principal officers.
E-sign
Ayoola Obadimu
Director of Information and Public Relations
Imeko-Afon Local Government
