The President of Association of
Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria (AISSON), Dr. Ona Ekhomu
has described the recent deadly attack on five banks in Otta, Kwara State, as a
terrorist attack, reports ITRealms.
“The attacks exhibited all the hallmarks
of a spectacular terror attack including violent neutralization of law
enforcement, use of IEDs, use of automatic weapons, large number of attackers, ISIS-style
vehicular convoy, aggressive combat tactics, large number of wanton deaths, etc.”
he said.
In his reaction in Lagos on
Wednesday, Ekhomu told ITRealms that the
narrative of bank robbery was grossly erroneous and patently false. Stressing that
it was a brazen terrorist attack aimed at causing mayhem, deaths and striking
fear into the hearts of Kwara citizens.
He insisted that “the seizure
of cash was a secondary objective.”
Pointing out that while it
could be understood on the need for fear reduction on the part of the authorities,
“it is not helpful to mischaracterize incidents thereby giving citizens a false
sense of security.”
In a related press statement
made available to ITRealms, Ekhomu
argued that Kwara State had recorded incidents of violent extremism and
terrorism in the past, and cited the case of the bombing of Ilorin township
Stadium many years ago and cases of foreign espionage agents and their Nigerian
conspirators detected in the state.
The security expert also argued
that with the reported displacement of Boko Haram fighters from Sambisa forest and
the mass release of Boko Haram suspects by the Federal Government, suspecting
that a terror cell might now be active in the Offa area.
“The authorities must
thoroughly investigate the terror attack and give Nigerians a proper
explanation of what happened on that day.
The actual perpetrators must be arrested and they must provide
corroborative evidence of their complicity.
Investigators must resist the temptation of arresting vagrants and
labeling them Offa bank robbers in order to look good. When the real perpetrators are caught, the
Police must resist the temptation to commit extra-judicial killing. The story of the perpetrators must come
out. It takes a very evil psychopath and
sociopath to lay siege to a police station and kill nine policemen in one fell
swoop and then proceed to murder at least 21 others,” he said.
Ekhomu, who is the first
chartered security professional in West Africa advised that there was an urgent
need to conduct adversarial threat assessments and vulnerability assessments of
Police facilities in the country. He said that the design basis threat (DBT) for
these facilities must be determined so that the security architecture and
engineering of facilities would be robust enough to address the threat. Design
basis threat (DBT) is the threat (e.g. tactics and weapons,
tools, explosives, etc.) against which assets within a building must be
protected and upon which the security engineering design of the building is
based.
According to Ekhomu, “the Boko Haram
insurgency has shown that there are some terrorists who delight in killing
police personnel. The Offa terrorists
did not have respect for police lives or human lives. Police fatality must be reduced to the barest
minimum so that we can have a civilized society.”
The current over-deployment of
military personnel, with all the attendant risks is because police personnel
are an endangered species based upon the actions of home grown terrorists.
The Police agency and the
Federal Government must ensure that persons or groups who harm police personnel
pay dearly for such savage acts.
Ekhomu commiserated with the Inspector
General of Police and the police family on the loss of nine police personnel
and advised that they must be named, given heroes’ burial and their families
compensated for their deaths in the line of duty.
Asserting, “Police lives must
not be cheap. We must honor their
sacrifice and service to the nation”.
Nenye Dom/ED, Ops
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