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By Joel Anekwe
In the bid to flush out criminals from the local government, the new chairman of Ikwerre local government area, Samuel Nwanosike, has said that communities must take over the war against criminals and criminal activities in their domains.
He called for traditional rulers, community development committees and youth and women leaders to be fully involved and to cooperate in ensuring that their communities were not hijacked by criminals and turned into hideouts for kidnapers and armed robbers.
He made the call on the heels of reports that criminals were “taking over communities” and converting farmland and forests in the local government to kidnapers and armed robbers’ hideouts.
Speaking to journalists on measures to address insecurity in the local government area, Nwanosike noted that, “very soon communities will move into the forests en masse to flush out criminals taking refuge there,” adding that the situation had become so bad that kidnap and cult gang leaders no longer respect traditional rulers but sometimes summon them to their houses to flog them.
He announced that through a synergy with the security agencies the council was already achieving results in the war against criminals with several arrests already made, including that of a kidnap kingpin.
Nwanosike gave a 3-week deadline to clear the forests of criminals, and encouraged farmers in the area to return to their farm lands, stressing that the council was already compiling names of women who collect money from criminals to cook and send food to them in the forests.
Nwanosike said that he had constituted three committees pursuant to the fulfillment of his campaign promises namely; Employment and Empowerment Committee, Back to Farm and Back to School Committee.
He explained that the Employment and Empowerment Committee has the responsibility of searching out employment opportunities for youths of the LGA and assisting them to explore and benefit from such openings.
Nwanosike said the Back to School Committee would be responsible for encouraging indigenes that are involved in peasant farming, adding “we must support them to make sure that as we chaste out those criminals from our farmlands we need to get our people back to the farms so that we can bring out Ikwerre garri again for Rivers people and Nigeria”.
The Back to School programme, “deliberately created to return indigenes to school,” is tailored towards the policy of Late Obafemi Awolowo in the South West that saw many people in the area gaining education and economic power.
“Education is key,” Nwanosike noted, adding that through the policy young boys and girls of the local government would be assisted to write WAEC and support indigent ones among them to go through school and make sure they obtain qualifications that they can defend.
