On Friday, a group of women from the Agan village, which is located a few kilometres from Makurdi, the capital of Benue State, demonstrated against what they described as the arbitrary detention of their children in the region.
The demonstrators expressed their annoyance at the way the state’s security forces were arbitrarily detaining their children.
One of the demonstrators, who only gave her name as Nguyan, claimed that young people in the region had recently been arbitrarily arrested.
Nguyan said, “Many of our children had been arrested in the past few days, security men would just swoop on this community arresting our youths.”
Recall how some young people in the Agan village recently assassinated two Kano natives who were travelling to the eastern portion of the country?
In a prompt reaction to the murder of the Kano natives, state governor Hyacinth Alia announced that five persons had been taken into custody by the police through his chief press secretary, Kula Tersoo.
In response to the demonstration on Friday, the Benue State Police Command cautioned against holding any protests that would divert attention from its current “clearing operations” around the state.
In a statement issued by the spokesperson for the State Command, DSP Udeme Edet, the command called on members of the public to provide the command with useful information that would help in its operation.
The statement, titled ‘Police Warn Against Distractions In Form Of Protest’, read in part, “The Benue State Police command is currently carrying out operations across the state to clamp down on criminals and ensure the safety of lives and property.
“These operations are gradually yielding results as evident in the arrest of suspects and destruction of criminal hideouts around Apa, Guma, Gwer-West, Sankera axis, and other areas.
“As part of support for operatives in the field, members of the public are requested to avail the police with useful information rather than distract the police’s ongoing focused clearance operations with any form of protest.
“Assembling people for protests at this time is distracting the police from engaging criminals as logistic attention will shift to the protection of protesters, thereby creating room for criminality to continue thriving. Also, such an assembly could be hijacked by hoodlums to perpetrate mayhem.”
The command, which said it was in the last lap of the exercise, expressed its commitment to its clearance operation, which it said would create lasting peace in the state.
The command explained that the ongoing operations were in synergy with all sister security agencies in the state and with the support of the state government and other security stakeholders within and outside the state.
The PPRO, however, warned members of the public to desist from assembling themselves to join any form of protest that is capable of endangering lives and causing unnecessary distractions to the ongoing operations.
“The good people of Benue State are encouraged to support all police operations in their communities as security is everybody’s responsibility,” the statement concluded
