The inhabitants of over 22 communities in Inikorogha in Ovia South West Local Council of Edo State have raised the alarm over planned withdrawal of security personnel in their communities.

The residents who staged a peaceful protest against the move on Wednesday
expressed worries over the activities of criminal elements invading their communities.

They described the move by some powerful individuals to withdraw the security personnel as inimical to the community’s welfare as the security agencies have continued to maintain peace in the areas.

The protesters, who came out in their numbers carried different placards with various inscription, such as, ‘Come to our aid Mr Governor’, ‘We need peace to do our business in Inikorogha’,‘Armed Robbers always come here to rape and rob our wives and women among others.’

They, however, commended Governor Godwin Obaseki for ensuring that peace and security prevailed in Inikorogha as well as linking their communities through road construction.
Addressing newsmen, Chairman, Inikorogha community, Friday Benson appealed to the governor to see to the extension and increase of security presence in the community.

“What we are saying in essence is that nobody should truncate the effort of the governor by planning to remove security personnel from our communities. There has been a great improvement of security in the last year and a half. We thank the governor for providing the needed security.

“Before now, evil attacks were meted out to our community, but today we have a strong presence of security men who were deployed from special forces at Mile 3.

“Their presence has checked insecurity being perpetrated in our land by some unscrupulous elements.”

Expressing worry over the information that the special forces providing security in the communities would be removed, Chairman of Elders Council, Philip Polo, called for more deployment of security.
He also thanked Governor Godwin Obaseki for his effort in road construction in Inikorogha.

“We want to first of all thank Governor Obaseki. He has performed well in terms of infrastructure but sadly it gave birth to some unscrupulous criminals that has made Inikorogha uninhabitable .

“These are perpetrated by some militants who came through the rivers. But when security came, everybody was relieved.

“The situation now is that these same people are trying to pull the strings from behind. We have information that they are trying to see to the withdrawal of the special forces responsible for peace rather than beefing them up,” he lamented.

When contacted, Edo State Police Command’s spokesperson, SP Chidi Nwabuzor said he was not aware of the situation or the protest by the communities.

He added that the protesters ought to have made their presence known at the police gate in the Edo State Police Headquarters in Benin City, which was not the case.

At press time, the state’s Commissioner for Public Safety and Security, Kingsley Uwagbale was yet to respond to enquiries on the protest