17th January, 2013
The Chairman of Epe Local Government Area of Lagos state, Southwest Nigeria, Olusegun Agbaje, has accused policemen posted to the town of neglecting their duties and pursuing trivialities.
Otunba Agbaje made this allegation when the state House of Assembly Committee on Local Government Administration and Chieftaincy Affairs paid a project inspection visit to the council on Wednesday.
The council Chairman said he would rather describe Epe as a town without the police when some of the members of the committee asked him about the security situation in the area.
According to Agbaje, as a result of the inactivity of the police in the area, there had been a serious increase in criminal activities including armed robbery attacks.
He said the situation got to a head when robbers from neighbouring villages in Ogun state began to invade and attack residents of the area.
The chairman further alleged that the police had earlier been given two vehicles to aid their patrol and tasks. He said his administration gave the police in the area one more vehicle.
“But if you go there now, you can’t find any of the vehicles. They have all disappeared,” he alleged.
Agbaje told the committee that he had to institute a vigilante group when the armed robbery situation in his council area became unbearable.
The vigilance group, according to him, is now the hope of the average Epe resident, as members of the group have been able to arrest several armed robbers.
“They even go into Ogun state to arrest such armed robbers and hand them over to the law enforcement agents,” he said.
The chairman said that in order to make the job easy for the vigilance group, his administration had provided them with vehicle. The council also helps to fuel the vehicles.
The chairman also confirmed that electricity had been restored in Epe almost two years after the entire town was thrown into darkness.
He however lamented that the electricity had not been stable.
He put the stability at 30 per cent, saying about two weeks after it was restored, the people only got it for about two hours daily where it is even provided by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
P.M.NEWS can report that for the past three days, there has not been electricity supply to the area.
—EROMOSELE EBHOMELE