The Ondo State Government has announced a ban on trucks transporting more than five persons through its borders to enhance security and curb rising kidnapping incidents.

Security agencies have been directed to turn back vehicles carrying goods alongside large groups of passengers.

According to officials, hundreds of wanderers have already been sent back after being intercepted and failing to explain their presence in the state.

Commander of the Ondo Amotekun Corps, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, disclosed this over the weekend while parading 58 suspects arrested for various crimes within two weeks.

Adeleye noted that the decision is part of broader security measures, adding that Amotekun operatives recently arrested 32 suspected kidnappers hiding in the state?s forests.

The Ondo Amotekun boss said the suspects could not give satisfactory answers of what they were doing inside the forest.

Adeleye said a joint patrol team comprising of the Army, the Police, the Civil Defense and Amotekun Corps have been drafted to border communities to restor normalcy and prevent any further attacks on farm settlements.

According to him, ?We had observed over a long period that trucks bringing foodstuffs and other things from the upper part comes in with hundreds of people coming down South without knowing where they are going. They just rush into the vehicle and become nuisance.

?The drivers have agreed to inform the owners of the trucks that the state will not tolerate more than five people per trailer for the loads, and security agencies at the borders have been so informed to send those vehicles with goods and human being in hundreds back to where they?re coming from.

In recent times, we have an upsurge of criminal activities kidnapping inclusive in Ondo State. The officers and men of the Ondo State security network mobilized additional support from the neighboring local government and entered into the forest reserves and areas noted for these nefarious activities. In the last one week, we were able to arrest 32 suspects for kidnapping that are undergoing different stages of interrogation.

?They were smoked out of the forests. All of them were smoked out of the forest reserve areas of the state and around the places where these unfortunate situations are happening.? (The Nation)

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