We will uproot you in your hideouts, IGP tells bandits

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu has disclosed that it is not going to be business as usual for bandits terrorizing some parts of the country as the force is set to take the fight to their den and uproot them.
Adamu made the commitment during his visit to Kaduna state Police command to interact with the senior security officers to put more strategies and review them, yesterday.
The IGP said it is time to go to the forests and uproot the bandits from their hide out.
According to him, this move became necessary because there are some challenges of bandits, ISWAP members and some elements of Boko haram around the state.
“This necessitated our concerted effort to root them out by negotiating with our sister agency, the Airforce and went to the forest to fight them and we recorded success.
“This is a constant strategy we put in place to go into their den to root them out as we are not relenting on our effort.
He explained that his visit in Kaduna, is to reassess the strategy in view of the fact that some villages were attacked by bandits in Igabi and Giwa LGAs.
“What had happened should not have happened and we will not allow it to happen again, we have been briefed on the channel that opened up on the attack and we will block those chances so they will never have the opportunity to attack again.”
The IGP called on the cooperation of the general public to keep providing the police with a useful information and we will act accordingly and it will be a continuous fight as we will not relent.
He added that most of these bandits have their houses in these villages and they believe that there are some people who are collaborating with the law enforcement agencies giving information about them.
“We have observed that they attack mostly early in the morning and at night, hence we will re-strategize to stop them from attacking these villages again.
Adding that, as we have brought more resources such as mobile units, special forces, counter terrorism unit, from other commands to Kaduna so as to re-equip the strategic officers in Kaduna to deal with banditry.
“For our men who are on the front line as always, we talk to them on the rules of engagement as they need to be courageous and remain focus.
This is because as you get to the front line, you do not retreat until you capture.
“We will encourage them to continue to work as we will keep supporting them in whatever way we can.” the IGP said.