By Godwin Tyonongu
The new Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Garaku division, DSP Solomon Yough, has assumed duties, and promptly held crucial security talks with local chiefs, market associations, leaders of Fulani herdsmen and the vigilantes in the area to mobilise against break law and order.
He told the gathering that their main headache as police in the area was the crisis that always erupted between farmers and their herdsmen, noting that even with that if the grassroots people cultivated the habit of giving out information to the police, they could do better in securing the terrain.
Our reporter, who monitored the meeting, reports that stakeholders expressed their willingness to cooperate with the police, assuring that it was the reason they allowed their youths to join the vigilantes when they discovered that the police alone could not do the work.
Security personnel at their meeting who pleaded anonymity said: “Sometimes they complain of lack of quick response and network challenges – that in some of their farms, the network a times fluctuates when they see any danger to report there is neither network nor motor able road. It takes time.
“Garaku is surrounded by a large bush. Most of the areas have thick forest around. Normally when criminals get someone and run into the thick forest, it becomes difficult, especially the Kaduna side with long forests attached to the road.
“The community should make it a duty to be giving confidential information; the criminals come by land from the bush, they may even be part of the community. They should even sympathise with them as their own but expose them.”
