The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba has given assurances of the restoration of safety and normalcy along the bandit infected Abuja-Kaduna highway.
Force Public Relations Officer, and Chief Superintendent of Police, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, who disclosed this yesterday, said the Police Chief gave the assurances while on a patrol operation of the entire 163km stretch of the Abuja-Kaduna expressway, for a hands-on assessment of the security challenges.
TheFact Nigeria reports that the Abuja-Kaduna road for so long, had been regarded as a dreaded route, following the onslaught by bandits who attack travellers, killing and kidnapping them. President Muhammadu Buhari had, last November, while presiding over a meeting of the National Security Council, directed security agencies to urgently address the resurgence of kidnapping and other crimes on the Abuja-Kaduna Highway and on other roads across the country.
Following this, the Nigeria Police Force in collaboration with other security agencies recorded a breakthrough as many bandits including a notorious bandit terrorising Kaduna-Abuja Highway, Yellow Magaji Arusa were neutralised. However, the highway had again in recent times degenerated into a hotbed of bandit attacks.
In the course of the patrol, IGP Baba personally supervised the operational deployment of officers drawn from the Police tactical squads to ensure the safety of travellers along the route, and also mapped out some salient and strategic points along the express which were immediately fortified with the deployment of operatives drawn from the Police Mobile Force (PMF), Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), Special Forces (SF), Intelligence Response Team (IRT), the Special Tactical Squad (STS), as well as airwing operatives in charge of unmanned aerial vehicles of the NPF.
During the patrol, IGP Alkali equally visited personnel of the Armed Forces and Police deployed at Rijana to secure technical crew of the Nigeria Railway Corporation, NRC, undertaking repair works at the damaged train coaches and rail line in the axis, to boost their morale and assess the state of their post.
While expressing confidence that with the strategic and operational deployment of officers along the route, normalcy would once again be restored, the IGP also tasked members of the public on active intelligence sharing with law enforcement agencies for effective policing of all spaces.
