‘Community Policing is the smartest way to police your people’ – Rep Olajide

By Christiana Ekpa

The Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on ICT, Hon. Stanley Olajide on Wednesday reiterated the 10th Assembly’s resolve towards the passage of bills on State Policing as part of ongoing efforts aimed at tackling the ravaging insecurity across the country.
Hon. Olajide, member representing Ibadan North West/South West of Oyo State who gave the assurance during a press briefing held at the National Assembly complex, Abuja, commiserated with Oyo State Government and families of victims of the explosion which occured in Ibadan, on Tuesday night.
He said: “Community policing is actually one of the very smartest way to police your people. somebody sees something somebody knows something, they need to speak at the right time.
“Failure to do so will cause situation like this. So, we are going to reopen that because remember, we’ve also been talking about State Police, we’ll be talking about Community Police.
“So, I think you know situation like this would actually present an urgency to the matter, so that that way we can get the right support that we need to pass whatever legislation that we need to to pass for this.
“So definitely we’re going to pick this up and it’s going to be in the front burner of the activities of the House as soon as we reconvene as a House.”
While reacting to the Tuesday explosion, Hon. Olajide who applauded the prompt intervention of Governor Seyi Makinde and all the First Responders, noted efforts are ongoing to nip the situation in the board.
He said: “we woke up to a very horrific situation in Ibadan which happened around 8pm last night. From information gathered so far coming from the office of the Governor of Oyo State, who I must also commend immensely for his rapid response to the situation.
“The dynamite or explosive detonated, we do understand the loss of lives. I do not want to speculate on the numbers of lives yet, because I don’t have those firm numbers yet. But we do know that there are casualties.
“From the Office of the Governor we also understand that a lot of people are in the hospitals receiving treatment, which the Governor has actually made commitments to make sure that everybody is taken care of to get the first class medical treatment that they deserve and they are going to get.
“Also let me say this very clearly that, I want to commend the First Responders NEMA, the Police, DSS and all the emergency responders that have responded to this urgent call.
“At this point, that area remains a crime scene, which means we have to work with the law enforcement to preserve the integrity of that area. I was going to go there this morning, but I was advised against it because going there we will also be part of the problem because if we go there, while the whole area has been cordoned off. And so to go there right now, we could polarize the area and we don’t want to play politics with the lives of our people.
“So, at this point, we’ll let the first responders and all of the security, medical agencies on rescue missions, we’ll let them go through their work. And then we’ll now go there condone with our people and also offer the relief materials because when you have a situation like this.
“And also let me say this, I have spoken to the Speaker of the House of Representative Rt. Honourable Tajudeen Abass. He also has offered his condolences to the people of Ibadan and Oyo State at large. And he has actually mandated me to also go ahead and do more fact-finding and present that to him at the end of today.
“So that we can figure out what kind of materials is needed for our people, so that we can actually come up with some kind of relief for our people.
“It’s unfortunate, but the information that we got it is that one of these illegal miners actually was in possession of this explosive in a residential area, which eventually cause this disaster. But we will find out more information.”