By Imelda Osayande
Benin, June 26, 2019
The Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, has called on communities in Edo to ensure that only credible men got nominated into the state government’s proposed Security Surveillance Team.
The call was contained in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr Desmond Agbama, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin on Wednesday.
The Oba stated, “the state government has resolved to set up a Security Surveillance Team to help identify criminals and their hideouts.”
He recommended that the nominees should be thoroughly screened to ensure that they were men of integrity and high moral standing in their communities.
He further charged the team to discharge their functions diligently and truthfully and to report criminal suspects or persons with questionable character to the appropriate persons in their communities.
He said that the report should finally be taken to the relevant security agencies for necessary action.
He was quoted to have stated that intelligence report revealed that herders, kidnap suspects and other criminal elements had established camps in the forests in various villages in the state.
He therefore charged prospective nominees to provide useful information that would help the security agencies to dislodge the camps.
He expressed the hope that the initiative would help in no small measure to combat the rising security challenges in the state.