Mohammed Shosanya
Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Adeolu Egbetokun has stated that Bauchi state has been selected as one of the states of the federation to kick-start the Special Intervention Squad as an intervention to handle crisis situations.
The IGP,who stated this on Wednesday when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Bala Mohammed at the Government house in Bauchi,said the police under his leadership will be establishing the Special Intervention Squad in all the 36 states of the federation,but will be first launched in 10 pilot states of the federation.
According to him,members of the squad will be officially selected, trained, equipped and specially motivated, adding that they will not engage in routine anti-crime patrol, but will be housed, fed and adequately taken care-off.
He explained that the mission of the squad is to respond to all crisis in their respective domains and return to base to continue training, stressing that with the establishment of the squad in all the states of the federation, activities of armed bandits will be reduced to the barest minimum.
“If we have this kind of squad in all the states of the federation, from our experience, we find out that if we face a particular state that is troubled by bandits, as we are chasing the bandits away from a particular state, they are moving into a neighbouring state and if you go to that state again, they will move to the next state.So we want to stop that, if we have this squad in all the states, as we are chasing them, they will not have another place to run to” he said
Responding to the visit, the Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed said that security is the priority of his administration, pointing that the selection of Bauchi State as one of the states of the federation to have a Police Special Intervention Squad was a welcome development.
“The Special Intervention Squad that you are establishing, we very happy that you are including Bauchi state and definitely whatever support you need, we are going to give it because security is the main thing we need.Security is what we need to go to school, farm as we are peasants here with a very large state. Our geography is difficult to manage, we have gulleys, rivers, valleys, ungoverned spaces, large forests and the demographics is not helping us, people are coming into the state because of the relative peace”
“We are a gateway to seven states and all the zones within the north.The North-East, the North-Central and the North-West and some of the activities of the federal government in the North-West is affecting us because you can see how intellect is deployed, as you are fighting them in the Northwest and the bandits are running into the North-East and this is the root which is Bauchi state”.
“We don’t have bandits in Bauchi state, what we have are informers and they are doing that because of poverty, poverty of mind and lack of community engagement.However, we don’t have technology to combat insecurity, we have written severally to the presidency, we need the Monitoring and Evaluation, we need the drones so that we can manage our country.It is unacceptable, we will employ the presidency to help you with the resources to deploy technology to complement the deficient we have in the area of human capital ” he said
