By Chiangi Avese, Makurdi
The House of Representative Member for Gwer-East/Gwer-West Federal Constituency in Benue state, Hon. Austin Asema Achado, has stated his sadness following the Otukpo bank robbery attacks last Friday in which over 10 innocent lives of security men, bank workers and customers were loat.
The broad daylight robbery attacks occurred in four commercial banks in the town simultaneously for about two hours without adequate security on ground to foil the operation.
Achado described the incident as “arguably the darkest spot on our security history; as far as armed robbery is concerned, robbers have never operated with this kind of unhindered confidence in Benue State”.
He lamented that “for some years now, our state has been battling with streams of attacks from herdsmen, bandits and kidnappers, a situation that is fast depleting our “food basket of the nation” status with internally displaced persons littered across the state in makeshift camps. But having robbers keep a busy town like Otukpo hostage for hours to operate with such gusto is the crescendo of the worst we should expect in the days ahead”.
Hon. Achado who deeply commiserated with the entire Idoma nation, especially Otukpo local government over this sad incident said, this is a crudely inhuman scenario that should never be imagined.
While condoling the Benue State Government over this tragic incident, the Reps Member said “i implore that the remote cause of this robbery attacks be thoroughly investigated to unravel the source of this gut”.
Arc. Achado pointed out that, “this particular robbery attacks are capable of dwindling the investment portfolio of the state and only strong government actions would restore the confidence of even the banks to maintain branches in the affected areas, after losing so much.
Though there are reports that some of the culprits have been apprehended by the police, I urge security agencies to do more by arresting all that are involved in these historic robbery attacks”.
