ABAKALIKI — CHAIRMAN Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Senator Paulinus Igwe-Nwagu, yesterday, raised alarm that suspected terrorists were gradually infiltrating Ebonyi State from Niger Republic and other parts of Africa.
Receiving the leadership and members of Ebonyi State council of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, at his country home at Oriuzor, Ebonyi State, Igwe Nwagu, who represents Ebonyi Central senatorial zone of the state, asserted that he had received reliable information that the terrorists masquerade as herdsmen who had infiltrated the state in their numbers.
He urged the people of the state to be more vigilant and report suspicious people in their areas to security agencies, adding that security was not only the responsibility of security operatives but every individual in the society.
He said: “I also want to warn again that people should collaborate now, particularly in Ebonyi State, to work with security agencies.
“I have received reports that people are coming in with cattles and so on and so forth; yes, that is how insurgency starts. All these cow rearers, they may come all the way from Niger Republic, you may not know and they may come with different ideas, we may not know”.
“What is important is that we the villagers should be able to look at them, report them to the appropriate quarters that is, the security agencies, so that they will probe into their activities so that another insurgency will not start from here. That is why I said that how to stop insecurity is not the business of government alone and security agencies alone.
“Above all we should also collaborate to fund the security agencies because funding is very important; both state, local and federal government and private sector should collaborate to fund the police, SSS, military. I’m not saying it because I’m the chairman of police committee of the senate, I’m saying it because of my experience; I have been chairman for the past six years now. I was chairman of the House of Reps Police Affairs. I’m now chairman in the senate so I wear the cap I know where it pinches me.”
The senator warned traditional rulers, councillors and community leaders in the area to ensure maintenance of peace and security in their domain even as he threatened to arrest and hand over to the police any of them that aids or abates criminality.
“This morning, I warned my traditional rulers and my people to report incidences of crime in their area. I will hand the person over to security agencies and if the councillor or the traditional ruler fails to inform me and I happen to find out myself I will hand both the traditional ruler, the councillors and the community leaders over to police so that will face the law, because the issue of people coming to sit down and people will come from nowhere to attack us, those days are gone, it is not now. “
