Offa bank robbery: Association of Licensed Private Security indicts Police

ILORIN-Fresh facts have emerged on the recent dastardly armed robbery attack on five banks in Offa, Kwara state as the state chairman of the Association of Licensed Private Security Practitioners of Nigeria, Olusola Obadeyi, has indicted the police command,accusing it of inaction despite being briefed ahead of the attack‎.
Obadeyi,speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Thursday during sensitization walk by members of the association, said that members of the association indeed alerted police authority in the area of activities of the hoodlums before the incident that claimed lives of nine policemen and several other people.He, however, noted that men of a licensed private security outfit working at the hotel where the hoodlums had stayed before their operation had informed police in the area of presence of men of questionable character. According to him,”Our men were everywhere,they were at the hotel where the hoodlums lodged and promptly alerted the police. But to our dismay, no action was taken until they carried out their dastardly acts” The security expert therefore called for complementary roles among regular security agencies in the country and members of the private security outfit, saying that the nation’s security network cannot be handled alone by the police. He said that members of the organization were in most of the country’s grassroots areas, adding that the country is too large and with insufficient number of police personnel to carry out security functions. He called on government and corporate organizations in the country to patronize registered members of the organization, for a collaboration and complementary security efforts capable of ensuring effective security control. Obadeyi, who raised alarm over proliferation and quackery of unregistered security outfits in the state, said that they posed security risk and threat to the well being of the state. He said that only 35 registered private security companies were in the state, adding that number of unregistered outfits outnumbered the registered. He also called on government and residents to ask for registration status of security outfit before they patronize them.