By Jude Atupulazi
Criminal elements in Anambra State have been given till the end of February next year to surrender themselves and be granted amnesty or face the wrath of government. Anambra State governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, stated this, Tuesday, at the Governor’s Lodge, while rolling out measures to stem the tide of insecurity that has overwhelmed the state.
The Governor, who also announced plans to launch a joint security operation to tackle insecurity in the state, said the operation would be codenamed, ”Operation Udo Ga -achi”, loosely translated to ”Peace will Reign”.
He said his government had identified armed robbery, kidnapping, cultism and touting as the principal problems causing insecurity in the state.
He said: ‘As for touting, the State Anti-touting Agency, codenamed SASA, is tackling that in Onitsha and they are doing quite well.
‘When we came in, about seven local government areas were in the grip of hoodlums, but we took on them head-on and liberated all those communities.
‘Today, we hear that a handful of some of those criminals earlier dislodged have now come together and have been terrorizing the state.
‘We have had reports of people being kidnapped and vehicles snatched, but in the coming days, we will launch ”Operation Udo Ga Achi”. We have procured here, 168 patrol vehicles which will be distributed to various security agencies.
‘Apart from the support we will be giving the security agencies, we are also deploying ICT in the fight against insecurity.
‘We are calling on criminal elements who would want to partake in our amnesty programme to come forward and surrender themselves and their arms. We are giving them from now to end of February to come and surrender and we will be ready to help them start life afresh.’
Speaking on the continuous incarceration of separatist leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and the fact that many of the criminals hide under the cover of his detention to perpetrate crime, Soludo said that indications had shown that what was happening was an organized criminal enterprise which had nothing to do with Kanu’s detention.
He said: ‘I have been at the forefront of the call for the release of Kanu, I even said that in the worst case scenario, I was ready to keep him here at the Government House and produce him anytime he is needed.
‘Part of the reason was that we really need to sit down to interrogate this whole idea. But for people saying that the insecurity is because of his detention, I want to tell you that Nnamdi Kanu himself and IPOB, the organisation he leads, have made several press releases dissociating themselves from the kidnap for ransom and criminality that is ongoing.
‘The truth of the matter is that criminals have now emerged, hordes of them organize themselves, using his (Kanu’s) name. I’m not so sure that even if he comes now and says, stop, that they will hear him. They have tasted blood and they will not stop. They go for kidnappings and they are making millions from it, so they will not stop.
‘Imagine someone who is riding okada and they recruit him and he goes into the bush and all his life he has never had N100,000 at once and he joins the group and all of a sudden they do a successful kidnap operation and he gets one million or two from ransom. Tomorrow, you think he will want to leave? In fact the one who tells him to leave the business will be his enemy.
‘So, the matter is much more complicated now and it is taking a life of its own. It is now lucrative business. All of them talking about agitation are just using that as a cover to get the sympathy of the people, especially those who are not informed. They present themselves as liberators. You are a liberator and you stay in the bush and you want us to believe you? They now add to it idolatry. The first thing they put in any town they go to is a massive shrine.’
The Governor said henceforth, his government would begin to revoke lands of any community who harboured criminals, adding that members of such communities who gave food or contributed money to take to them in the bush would be treated as collaborators.
He said: ‘Also, any house that is found to have harboured kidnappers will henceforth become the property of the government.’
