BY OBARO ELELEWOR
Delta State Government’s efforts at combating and checkmating crime and other criminal activities, including violent armed robbery, hostage taking, kidnapping and oil pipeline vandalism, may not achieve much except the government  increases avenues for job creation as alternative means of engagement for the youth.
The state Commissioner for Police,  Ikechukwu Aduba, who stated this at an interactive session with the state Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists in Asaba, said job creation and empowering of the youth remained the best ways to fight crime upsurge in the state.
He noted that the Emmanuel Uduaghan-led administration had been pumping hundreds of millions of naira into arms and ammunition purchases. The CP said this must not be done at the expense of job creation and youth empowerment, which might perhaps keep the youth busy and turn their minds away from evil acts.
According to him, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. He, therefore, advocated a ‘back-to-farm programme’ as the needed panacea for crime among the teeming youths in the state.
In the area of crime curtailment, he said although N25m had been earmarked as security fund in the state, the Police Command still needed more of such security funds for efficient crime prevention.
“Security is expensive but more operational vehicles are needed, sound and fast-moving armoured cars are needed to track down, hack down and hunt hardened criminals, who nowadays operate with unconventional or sophisticated weapons like rocket launchers,” he said.
Though the Delta CP did not disclose the additional sums of money needed for effective, service delivery, investigation revealed that about N500m was being projected as the need by police authorities in the state to do this.
Aduba lamented that security fund was not working in Delta State just as the case in in Lagos State, as corporate bodies, like commercial banks, offered no form of assistance to police in the fight against crime in Delta State.
On the part of Police, he said bad eggs were being dismissed from the state Police command.
Via: http://www.punchng.com/
