Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, Marcus Onobun, has blamed Thursday’s armed robbery incident at Uromi, Esan Northeast Local Government Area of the state on lack of intelligence by security agencies and the porous nature of the ancient town.
Onobun, an Esan man, yesterday, while speaking on a national television, which was monitored in Benin, condemned the armed robbery, which was carried out by no fewer than 20 gunmen who operated for over two hours. The robbers attacked four commercial banks and carted away huge sum of money. Seven persons including two policemen lost their lives while many persons were injured.
The Speaker and the state’s Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, later yesterday visited Uromi to assess the situation, emphatise with bereaved families and to greet the people who were injured.
Onobun said: “What happened at Uromi on Thursday came to us as a rude shock. It is what one can best describe as an invasion. With what we have seen, the pictorial evidence and some videos that have been around on social media, it is quite unfortunate.
“With what I saw, even though we have not been properly briefed about what actually happened, you could see that the security was overwhelmed. It is quite unfortunate that such an incident could be carried out without any formal intelligence to the various security agencies, because I do not think that such an action was just planned overnight, because you have these criminals numbering over 20, with various vehicles and all sophisticated weapons.
“Considering the locations of the financial institutions and the area, it is quite porous, because we have a boundary with Delta State, and of course, there are some other routes to some riverine areas, especially Illushi, where there is the River Niger.”
Onobun called on the government at all levels to increase their vigilance, in order to check future occurrence of such dastardly incidents, while calling on security agencies to use the available pictorial evidence and videos to fish out the criminals.
He said: “I want to believe, with what we have in place, the security architecture that is put in a place by Edo state government, we will be able to track the armed robbers and bring them to justice.”
“For the local government where the armed robbery happened, Esan Northeast, it is one of the most populous local governments that we have in Edo Central Senatorial District, which has a standard police station and divisional police headquarters. So, we expect that the policemen have all the required equipment. From what we were told, the police station was also attacked. So, this is part of the investigations that the security agencies have to carry out.
“There are so many questions that are begging for answers, in order to know the people who conspired to see that the attempts to raid the people were successful. We also need to know how the criminals got into Uromi, that the security agencies were unable to pick on them, and they drove freely.”
