Oyo State Governor Engineer Seyi Makinde says his administration will continue to support security agencies operating in the state to deliver on their mandates.
He stated this at the Government House, Agodi, Ibadan, while receiving State Directors of the Department of State Services in the South West States, who were in the state to hold the South West Zonal Conference of Directors of State Services.
While emphasising that security is key to the successful implementation of government policies,governor Makinde praised the team, led by its Chairman, Sheikh Mohammed Waziri, for helping to tackle insecurity in all the nooks and crannies of the country.
“I am also happy that from your interaction, you have been able to come up with the fact that drug abuse and children in primary school becoming cultists is common. Yes, we can go after them just like you have suggested. We can win the war with brute force but can we win peace with the same force? For us, we think striking at the heart of what is causing all of these is Germaine. And if you trace it, it is economical. So, it is difficult to bring people to live peacefully together.
“When you have a situation where the resources are limited and we are all scrambling for it and we are not baking enough cake to go round, then there will always be serious issues where people will look for where they can gain a little bit of an advantage over the other people. So, I will ask that in your recommendations and course of action, let us also look at how we can win the peace.
“And on this issue, I give you the assurance that when we have the South West Governors meeting, I will bring it up so that we can have a common regional approach to dealing with the challenges.
“For us as an administration, we know that the essence of power and all of these things that we are surrounded with is to ensure that people are able to live their dreams and go about their daily businesses in a safe and secure atmosphere.
The governor also charged the DSS to ensure it emphasizes issues that would unite Nigeria, adding that the country has never been this divided.
In a remark, Chairman of the South West Zonal Conference of State Directors of State Service, Sheik Mohammed Waziri, said that the DSS understands the importance of security in a polity, adding that without security there would not be development.
He said: “ We are concerned just like Your Excellency is also concerned about the increasing threat to local and national security in terms of kidnappings, cultism and famers/herders clashes.
“We are also concerned that this is also a period that all hands must be on deck to ensure that we resolve some of those issues and, as an intelligence-based organisation, it is our responsibility to identify the threats, share the concerns, and identify the criminals and miscreants within both governed and ungoverned space.
Iyabo Adebisi
pub-5160901092443552
Related Posts
