Insecurity: Southwest speakers want procurement of drones, surveillance helicopters

To address challenges of insecurity, speakers of Houses of Assembly in the Southwest states have called on governors of the geopolitical zone to come together to procure drones and at least three helicopters for aerial surveillance of the region.

This is as they also called on the governors to adequately empower the forest rangers in each of the six states of the region to embark on aggressive patrol of the forest areas.

These calls were among resolutions at the end of a meeting of Conference of Speakers of Southwest States’ Legislatures held in Ibadan, on Saturday.

Led by conference chairman, Honourable Oleyelogun Bamidele, the speakers held that such additional deployment of technology, infrastructure and personnel will change the security architecture of the Southwest states.

Though they posited that the efforts of the state governments in the zone in addressing the security challenges were yielding positive results, they called for the strengthening of laws establishing Amotekun corps to give room for the recruitment of able-bodied unemployed youths.

They held that such recruitment of able-bodied unemployed youths will help in surveillance, information and intelligence gathering.

Also, the speakers asked that both executive and legislature of the six states jointly organise a Southwest security summit where requisite resolutions will be passed.

Though the leaders of Southwest legislatures held that the Nigeria Police was doing their best in securing the nation, they reiterated calls for the establishment of state police to complement the efforts of the security agencies.

On security challenges across the nation, the conference called on the federal government to take proactive steps to urgently restore peace to the troubled spots in the country.

The conference also said it was important for the government to mete out appropriate sanctions to persons behind crimes and criminalities in the country to send a strong warning to people behind the various dastardly acts.

Present at the conference included Speaker of Oyo State house of Assembly, Honourable Adebo Ogundoyin; his Ogun counterpart, Honourable Taiwo Oluomo; his Ekiti counterpart, Honourable Funminiyi Afuye (Ekiti), while Honourable Sanai Agunbiade spoke on behalf of the forum of the majority leaders in the zone. (Nigerian Tribune)