By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
Oyo State government has turned the heat on kidnappers and other criminals in Ibarapa and Oke-Ogun axis of the state.
The state Governor, Seyi Makinde, who disclosed this, assured that the state would succeed in routing the criminals.
Makinde gave the assurance at different spots in Ibarapaland where he engaged the people in town hall meetings.
He said that his administration would get the criminals to account for their heinous crime in the state.
He also declared that the state could not afford to lose any more lives to insecurity, stating, however that any action that must be taken would be guided by the law.
In a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, the governor spoke in Ibarapaland during meetings at Idere, Igangan and visits to the homes of the late Dr. Fatai Aborode and others who lost their lives to the crisis in the area.
Makinde, who equally commiserated with Mrs. Idowu Babarinde, who lost a child to indiscriminate shooting by kidnappers in their attempt to kidnap a filling station owner in Idere, said that he was pained by the losses recorded in the area.
“I decided to spend the night in Ibarapaland so as to let you know that if my people in this place cannot sleep with two eyes closed, I cannot also sleep with my two eyes closed in Ibadan,” the governor said, adding that the visit afforded him the opportunity of feeling the pains of the people first-hand.
His words: “We are turning the heat on the criminal elements and we will surely get them.”
He promised that the government would compensate victims of the insecurity in Ibarapaland, adding that measures that the government is taking to curtail the situation include the setting up of an all-inclusive peace and security committee at the local government levels and the stepping up intelligence gathering in the area.
He said, “So, I have listened to you. I came here purposely to sleep over to demonstrate that your problem is also my problem. If you cannot sleep with your two eyes closed, I also have no business sleeping with my two eyes closed in Ibadan.”
At the home of the Aborodes where he commiserated with father of the late Aborode, Makinde said: “I want to tell you that I feel your pain because when I saw the news of the death of Dr. Fatai Aborode, I was seriously pained.
“In 2017, when we were striving to restructure the PDP, we started meetings and put some people in some local governments. “Dr. Aborode was made the point man in Ibarapa North. I was at Ibadan in charge of Ibadan North-East and we did hold meetings at Premier Hotel. The situation is that if a tsetse fly perches on one’s private part, it requires wisdom to make it fly away or to kill it.”
