Fresh facts have emerged on the recent dastardly armed robbery attack on five banks in Offa, Kwara state as the state chairman of the Association of Licensed Private Security Practitioners of Nigeria, Olusola Obadeyi, accused the state police command of inaction.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Thursday, during a sensitization walk by members of the association, Obadeyi said that members of the association alerted police authority in the area of activities of the hoodlums before the incident that claimed lives of nine policemen and several other people.
Obadeyi, who said that men of a licensed private security outfit working at the hotel where the hoodlums had stayed before their operation had informed police in the area of presence of men of questionable character.
The security expert called for complementary roles among regular security agencies in the country and members of the private security outfit, saying that the nation’s security network cannot be handled alone by the police.
He said that members of the organization were in most grassroots areas of the country, adding that the country is too large and with insufficient number of police personnel to carry out security functions.
He called on government and corporate organizations in the country to patronize registered members of the organization, for a collaboration and complementary security efforts capable of ensuring effective security control.
Obadeyi, who raised alarm over proliferation and quackery of unregistered security outfits in the state, said that they posed security risk and threat to the well-being of the state.
He said that only 35 registered private security companies were in the state, added that number of unregistered outfits outnumbered the registered, calling on government and residents to ask for registration status of security outfit before they patronize them.