Former Special Adviser to Osun state Governor and Editor-in-Chief Nigerian Politics Online reports, Semiu Okanlawon, says everyone should be concerned, and join whatever effort that needed to be put in place to ensure that the shenanigan comes to an end.
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According to him, the kidnap of Professor Adigun Agbaje was what caught the attention of Nigerians to the menace along that route.
Mr Okanlawon stated that what is happening in the southwest portion of the country, where the Lagos-Ibadan route is significant, is not just getting started.
“We will only be deceiving ourselves to think that this is just something that’s starting just yesterday.
“Some few years back, along the Ibadan-Ife highway, people had been kidnapped. A professor was kidnapped sometime in 2017 along the Ekiti highway.
“We have been having these kind of cases all along, but without gaining this kind of traction. Now that we are getting to a point where people are being picked at will and we know that kidnapped cells, kidnapped camps are already being set up along this road, then it causes all of us to really wake up from a slumber and make sure that we put an end to this.
“This is the time for all the security agencies and local security network to put heads and resources together to ensure that all important route is secured.”
Security and intelligence expert, Seyi Adetayo said quite a number of conversations have been had with authorities about the situation along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and what he expected to start seeing was clearance.
“These are issues bordering on national security, You can’t keep bushy places that you are holding onto the land.
“Clear 50 meters on both sides so that travelers can see from afar, and it will be difficult for someone to actually move and intercept vehicles going when the distance between where they can hide and where a fast moving vehicle is.”
“Second thing they need to need to do is that reach out to the communities, invite people around those areas, bring them into the meeting. It is an opportunity for government to employ at least two people from those committees into Amotekun, intelligence unit of Amotekun.
“The bushes are a screen for attack, however, after the attack, they still take these people into those communities. These people speak Yoruba fluently, they are Northerners, but they’ve shown that they’ve lived in Yoruba land for a very long time which means they understand the environment.
“Secondly, the moment they hear that they are close to where people are settled, they divert, but there’s no how they will leave traces
“If you don’t onboard the locals into your fight against those people, they will on board the locals forming a value chain into their own enterprise, and that is the reason it became very difficult in Zamfara, Kaduna to be able to control it,” Adetayo said.
