By Odimegwu Onwumere
The Igbo saying that everyday is for the thief but one day is for the owner of the house has come to play in Anambra State where Governor Peter Obi has risen above board as the owner of the house to deal with criminals and kidnappers squarely. It is commendable the step the governor has taken to look criminals and kidnappers eyeball to eyeball. Such move is to exterminate their monstrous trade and make crime ineffective in the state. This shows that Governor Obi wants to tell the youths that crime does not pay. They must imbibe morality to its expedient and engage in sensible programmes that will make them not vulnerable to the espionage of security agents and the arm of the law. It’s a known fact that criminals and kidnappers had held the state to a standstill that had almost crippled its activities and economy with notable rich men and women leaving the state for more secured places.
The news reports that Governor Peter Obi-led Anambra State Government fostered the security agents in the state with the purchase of 300 utility vehicles to additionally toughen security in the state, is highly commendable. The stand of Obi-led government on security, it was snappishly accounted thus: “The security issues have been addressed. And as President Goodluck Jonathan comes at the end of the month (August 30), one of the things he is going to do is the inauguration of 300 utility vehicles which are going to be deployed to security agencies in the state. These vehicles procured by the State Government will be distributed among the Army, the Police, the Navy, the vigilantes. Each of the 177 communities in the state will get at least one as a show of government’s commitment to encourage industrialization”.
On August 30, the vehicles were made known to the public during the visit of President Jonathan to enlist Anambra as the 10th oil producing states in Nigeria. The police, the Army, the Navy, vigilante groups in the 177 communities in Anambra State had since been expressing their unflinching support and joy to the Obi-led government of Anambra State. The exhilarating phase of the procured security vans was that they were acquired from an indigenous automobile manufacturing company. This is in line with the Obi-led government’s policy to tremendously give optimum sustenance to the growth of commerce and industrialization in the country.
Not even Obi himself would get into deliberation with anybody that would say armed robbers and kidnappers are not on the run in Anambra State with what Nigerians are seeing and reading in the newspapers that the security operatives are doing to them. Governor Obi’s fight against crime in the state can no longer be regarded as mere discernment, and not reality, because of what we have seen and are seeing. The governor has espoused a new advancement to the fight against criminality.
This advancement in fighting crime in Anambra State is not a method of make-belief or maligning of perceived political enemies, but a long period of investigation, where security operatives followed some so-called criminals and kidnappers to a hotel. The men of the underworld were not immediately molested as was the case of security people in Nigeria. They were said to have been interrogated and for this reason the investigators revealed that those people traced to the hotel were indeed using the place for heinous activities of crime such as keeping their kidnapped victims, and they were arrested by the police. After the arrest of four assumed kidnappers in the hotel, the owner of the hotel was so they say, followed to Enugu and was also arrested.
The four persons suspected to be kidnappers, the police gave their names as, Chinedu Eze, Obumneme Madugha, Okezue Chukwuemeka and John Okoro. The gain for the arrest was that the confessional statements the arrested made helped the police to salvage two kidnapped victims, who were given as Augustine Emeka, operations manager of Zenith Bank at Nkpor, and Sir Vincent Ohiagwu from Uga in Aguata Local Government Area. The two persons were until their rescue, in the hands of their kidnappers since on July 29, 2012, they were kidnapped.
Unlike what obtains in Nigeria, where a personality of Governor Peter Obi would have stayed in the office and tell his subordinates to go find out the true situation of the news of the arrest of the notorious supposed kidnappers, but he rather buckled his shoes and led security personnel to the hotel. On the fact finding mission, Governor Obi later pronounced the shutting down of the hotel. After this incident, many arrests of criminally minded persons have been made at many other parts of the state. Especially at Nri in Anaocha Local Government Area, some persons were arrested in a lonely unreserved compound accommodating a bungalow and a one-storey manor under building. Also, houses have been confiscated in this struggle by Governor Peter Obi to stem crime in Anambra State.
The feat achieved so far by the governor in making sure that Anambra State subdued crime to the barest minimum would boost peace and commerce in the state. With the development of arresting some implicit kidnappers and criminals in the state shows that Obi is effecting meaningful change in Anambra. The state has bounced back to its glorious status. And this is achieved with perseverance and long struggle with the unrepentant crime-dealers. It is a good example to merchants of crime anywhere in the world to know that crime does not pay. Governor Peter Obi has shown that he is a mighty man in battle. From Nkpor to Onitsha it has been a harvest of arrest of evil men.
The governor personally supervised the closure of some of the hideouts where the daredevils were caught. This is manifest that the governor is out to zero crime in Anambra State. Never the less, while the sealed hotels are waiting reopening pending when investigations are completed, the seized buildings from the children of the underworld should have been placed as a museum where generations would see them instead of demolish them. Albeit, the demolishment is a great lesson to owners of uncompleted buildings in Anambra and, by extension anywhere, that they should make sure such buildings are completed, or secure them properly to scare social miscreants from using them as their hideouts. It is relatable that the state government differentiates between the buildings owned by the criminals and those they erroneously rented or occupied. For case in point, hotels are meant for commercial purposes. And the proprietors of those sealed hotels might not be partners-in-crime with the arrested criminals and kidnappers. The government should nevertheless not wane in its effort to tame crime. And where anybody is involved, the law should not tamper evenhandedness with mercy.
Culled from http://www.odimegwuonwumere.com/gov-obi-and-safety-measures-in-anambra-state/
