Kwara State Police command has linked recent upsurge in cult activities and crimes in the Ilorin metropolis to some unscrupulous commercial motorcycle (okada) and tricycle (keke) operators, promising to implement night ban on their operations in the state.
Tribune Online gathered that one person was killed at Oke Apomu area of Adangba in the state capital by suspected cultists on the eve of July 7 celebration by cultists, while the metropolis had witnessed attacks and counter-attacks of rival cult groups in recent time.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Tuesday during her maiden press conference, the state Commissioner of Police, Ebunoluwarotimi Adelesi, said that the command, under her watch, would ensure full implementation on restriction of movement of Okada and Keke operators, especially at night, in order to reduce the spate of kidnapping, cult activities, among all other forms of crime in the state.
The law restricting movement of okada operators at night by the state government had been in place since about 2007. These criminal elements use okada and tricycle to ferry either their victims or themselves for cult activities and other forms of crime, especially at night. Interestingly, most of them are artisans. We’re saying that we’ll give them no space nor mercy. We’ll clamp down on them. The ban on night movement of okada is for security and to prevent crime”, she said.
The new Commissioner of Police, who described her assumption of office as homecoming, was at a time the Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Command.
Adelesi, who identified contemporary policing as IT-centric, said that urgent steps would be taken to improve on the employment of ICT as a veritable tool of reducing the probability of felons escaping apprehension.
“Efforts will therefore be intensified in collaboration with other relevant government, non-governmental agencies and the public to make crime unattractive and unprofitable”, she said.
She also said that arrangements were being made to strengthen existing collaboration among neighbouring state commands like Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, and Niger states as a way of forestalling felons from taking undue advantage of the interstate boundaries to perpetrate criminal activities.
