‘Withdrawal of troops from checkpoints to reinforce security, check communal feuds’

Commander of Operation Safe Haven (OPSH), Major-General Augustine Agundu, has said the need to reinforce security in the hinterlands and check communal crisis informed the withdrawal of OPSH troops from checkpoints.

He stressed that the decision to withdraw troops from major roads and other flashpoints on Jos/Bukuru metropolis was informed by the fact that the troops were most needed in the hinterlands.

He disclosed this yesterday at a dinner with troops of OPSH to mark the Sallah celebration.

“The withdrawal is not to signal preparation to the end of the task force deployed to the state from the Defence Headquarters. It is to reinforce the hinterlands where there are challenges of inter-tribal feuds and other security issues,” he said.

He pointed out that if not properly handled, the constant communal disputes could result in sectarian or untoward situations, adding: “What we have done is to enforce our presence in the rural areas, which are not easily reachable.

“The communities have already accepted and welcome development. There are other security agencies also on the Plateau apart from OPSH. We have the Plateau State Police Command, the Plateau State Civil Defence Corps and Operation Rainbow, which is the state’s security outfit.

“There are many of them. We (OPSH) operate better under severe conditions and landscape. That is why we are more effective in the hinterland than in the cities.”

Agundu also noted that the issues of cultism, gangsterism and other vices could not be done away with all of a sudden because they are as old as society and history.

“We are working on those issues. I cannot tell you what we are doing, but I can let you know that issues of cultism are eliminated.

“Some of these cultists come from other states and that is why we encourage everybody on the Plateau to work with us so that Plateau doesn’t become a haven for all forms of crimes and criminality,” he stated.