Inspector General of Police, IGP Mohammed Abubakar Adamu has said that, the police have identified loopholes that led to the last Sunday bandits’ attack on five Kaduna villages, where 51 persons were killed
The IGP however vowed to that, such attack will never happen again under his watch, as the identified loopholes were being worked on.
IGP Adamu stated this in Kaduna on Wednesday, when he visited to interact with the senior security officers about their activities in the state and the strategies put in place.
He said that, aside securing the communities, the police in collaboration with the Nigerian Air Force will consolidate on its onslaught against the dreaded bandits inside the forest and root them out.
According to the IGP, the onslaught is very important “because there are some elements of bandits, ISWAP members and some elements of Boko Haram around the state.
“This necessitated our concerted effort to root them out by negotiating with our sister agency, the Airforce and went to the forest to fight them and we recorded success.
“This is a constant strategy we put in place to go into their den to root them out as we are not relenting on our effort.
“So I am here in Kaduna to reassess the strategy in view of the fact that some villages were attacked by bandits in Igabi and Giwa local government on Sunday where about fifty one people were killed during the attack.
“What had happened should not have happened and we will not allow it to happen again, we have been briefed on the channel that opened up on the attack and we will block those chances so they will never have the opportunity to attack again.
“We have observed that they attack mostly early in the morning and at night, hence we will restrategise to stop them from attacking these villages again as we have brought more resources such as mobile units, special forces, counter terrorism unit, from other commands to Kaduna so as to re-equip the strategic officers in Kaduna to deal with banditry.
“For our men who are on the front line as always, we talk to them on the rules of engagement as they need to be courageous and remain focus because as you get to the front line, you do not retreat until you capture. We will encourage them to continue to work as we will keep supporting them in whatever way we can,” he said.
The IGP however called for cooperation of the general public to keep providing the police with useful information, assuring that, they will act accordingly and ensure continuous fight against the bandits.
He added that, “most of these bandits have their houses in these villages and they believe that there are some people who are collaborating with the law enforcement agencies giving information about them.”