Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has again indicated his resolve to ensure adequate security of the residents of the state during and beyond the pandemic.

Dr Fayemi, who stated this during the inaugural meeting of the governing board of the newly established Ekiti State Security Network (Amotekun Corps) in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday, said his administration would continue to collaborate with the police and other security agencies to ensure adequate training of Ekiti indigenes to police the various communities.

The Governor said he was dissatisfied with the way hoodlums are taking over the forests and communities, urging the security network to go all out at ensuring that every part of the state was safe for all residents.

He asserted that the state would continue to collaborate with other states in the southwest region to share intelligence and ideas to ensure that bandits are not allowed to infiltrate the state borders noting that crimes don’t recognize boundaries.

Fayemi said: “And as governors in the southwest, this was what led to our decision to set up the security network agency on a state by state basis but coordinating and collaborating with one another because crimes don’t recognize boundaries and because of that, we need to share intelligence, ideas and work together in order to ensure that whatever we do at the state level is effective and efficient and its collaborative with other stakeholders.

“We know and we all are very concerned with the security situation in our country, the primary responsibility of any government is the security and welfare of its citizens.

“The idea of course is that security is about people and it should be driven by people, the citizens themselves are the best providers of security because they have information about what is going on in their environment and if they are alive and attentive to it, they would be able to respond effectively to whatever challenges that may arise.”

Dr Fayemi noted that the board consists of people who had wide experience in the security architecture representing critical stakeholders alongside the traditional security outfits like the police, State Security Service, NCDC and others.

The Governor explained that the meeting was not a formal inauguration, but a meeting called to rub minds together with the stakeholders pending the time the structure would be formalised with the endorsement and clearance of the state House of Assembly.

He said: “It is important for those that have been appointed and those that have been asked to serve on the board to at least get to know one another and familiarize themselves with our mainstream members and leaders of the security agencies who are also going to be critical stakeholders in this process.

“At the time we were doing this, the Nigeria Police also commenced what we considered to be a critical compliment of this exercise with the launch of the community policing arrangement of the Nigerian police, and the first batch of officers that have been trained who are from our state have now come back and would be deployed to their various local government working alongside those that are eventually going to be recruited and deployed to the local government areas by the security network agency that is being created, that way some of the things that we have had to deal with would be effectively curbed.

The governor stated that the independent complaints agency that the state also put in place alongside the board was to address a legitimate concern of the populace that security apparatus might be hijacked by the political party in office to foment trouble or used to settle political issues.

“The uniqueness of this agency is the independent complaints board, because one of the legitimate concern that people are already expressing about the security network agency is that it may either be an extension of the political party in office or it may be used illegally against those who are perceived not to be in the good books of the government of the day.”

Earlier, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Barr. Wale Fapohunda, said the board was set up in accordance with Section 4 of the Ekiti State Security Network Agency Law of 2020 that there shall be established for the agency a governing board which shall comprise of a chairman who shall be a person of proven integrity with cognate experience in security matters.

The board, according to the Attorney General shall also comprise of the Commissioner of Police, Director of the State Security Services, Commandant of NSCDC, the executive secretary, Ekiti State Security Trust Fund, one representative from the business community, chairman, Ekiti state council of traditional rulers among others.

Members of the governing board led by its chairman, Mr Akin Aregbesola, pledged their unflinching support to the efforts of Governor Fayemi at ensuring security of lives and properties of the residents of the state and assured the government that they would all bring their experiences to bear at ensuring a crime free Ekiti State.

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