By Dele Moses, Ilorin
Kwara Sate Commissioner of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has hinted that his command had uncovered eight illegal routes through which transporters smuggle passengers into the state in breach of order of ban on inter-state travels .
Egbetokun however said that the command had immediately after the uncovering closed down the routes to ensure that the travel ban imposed to check spread of COVID-19 in the state was effective.
He made the disclosure during a meeting with members of the federal government joint technical task team (JTTT) on COVID-19 to ease the challenges of movement of food and agricultural produce in the state.
The police boss who is also the chairman of the JTTT said there was need for the state government to take tougher sanctions to check violation of the inter-state travels ban.
He suggested prosecution and conviction of transporters vioalting the inter-state travel ban, impounding of their vehicles and sending back of the passengers of the vehicles to their respective states under monitoring.
Egbetokun said despite measures put in place by security agencies to check inter-state travel restrictions, truck drivers keep developing pranks to beat security agencies.
“I still receive reports of violation of border closure restriction by truck drivers ,We have closed eight illegal routes created by truck drivers but despite our efforts, it is not serving as deterrent. They kept on smuggling passengers in different trucks .
” In fact, I am going to suggest to the state government that henceforth, any vehicle caught should be impounded , the vehicle should be forfeited to the state government and the driver should be convicted and sentenced while the passengers should be conveyed in another vehicle back to their respective states,” he stated.
