From David Eze, Abakaliki
Ebonyi state government has announced plans to recruit 1,000 vigilantes to checkmate the menace of herdsmen and other security challenges in the state.
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr. Kenneth Ugbala who disclosed this while briefing journalists on the outcome of the state Security Council Meeting in Abakaliki stated that out of the 1,000 vigilantes, 700 would be in charge of the grassroots while 300 would be deployed to the urban centres.
He said that the State government has already concluded arrangement for the procurement of 30 Hilux van that would be distributed to security agencies while another set of 80 Sienna bus would be procured for members of the state vigilante groups.
“The council had extensive discussion on the establishment of vigilante and we want to take our security from the grassroot the way it has always been traditionally. Every community in Ebonyi state is to have five vigilante and that will give us a total of 700 vigilantes at the 13 local government areas of Ebonyi State”.
“They will be responsible outside our normal community vigilantes that have always been our traditional way of safeguarding our people which the government encouraged that all the villages and communities should set up their own vigilante”.
“The state will equally set 700 vigilantes across the 13 LGAs and another 300 at the urban area making it a total of 1000 vigilante members. The essence of it is that all the necessary facilities that can help them do their work better including mobility and training will be instituted through the Ministry of Internal security immediately.
The vehicles have already been purchased by the government to make sure that they are strategically located in all the corners in the state so that our people are not attacked by bandits”. He stated.
On the attacks on police stations in the state, Ugbala said policemen had been mandated to secure their stations and that any station attacked would be closed down.
“The reason is that our security agencies have the primary responsibilities of protecting not only their stations or personnel working with them but our citizens but where they cannot even protect themselves, it is a big problem because they are trained for that and government agreed that if the agencies allowed their facilities to be attacked, then Ebonyi government will be requesting for close down of such station or area command while the officers working in such places will face disciplinary actions”.
