By Leshi Adebayo
The Bauchi State Police Command has assured residents of Birshin Fulani, of adequate security of their lives and property with a view to ensuring peace in the community.
Birshin Fulani, a community on the outskirts Bauchi on the Bauchi-Dass road, has recently been under attack by kidnappers, who have been abducting residents of the community. Two persons were recently killed, including a senior staff member of The Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, Engineer Mohammed Garbage Abubakar.
The most recent attack was the one involving a mother of three, one Mrs Ruqayya Odedoyin. She was kidnapped from her resident in the early hours of Friday last week, while her children were locked up in the house by the kidnappers.
This rising spate of insecurity in the community led to the blocking of the Bauchi-Dass road for some hours on Friday by the youths as a protest against the rampant kidnapping in the community.
Speaking on the matter with Daily Post, The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Command, Mohammed Ahmed Wakil, said the police was doing everything possible to ensure the safety of the people in the community.
Superintendent Wakil said that there is tight security now at Birshin Fulani, citing that the whole community has the presence of the police. He stated that the police operatives in the area provided with vehicles to carry out their duty of securing lives and property.
“That is why they (police operatives) are given vehicles to be able to enter nooks and crannies. And if you look at it, the modus operandi of the kidnappers is the use of motorcycles. There are areas motorcycles can access that vehicles cannot,” Wakil said.
He warned against politicisation of the situation saying that there is no need for blaming anyone for the current situation.
He said, “It is not true for somebody to say there is no security there or security have not responded to their distress calls. They responded to their distress calls.”
The PPRO, however, called on members of the community to assist the police saying, “Members of the public should appreciate the efforts of the police. They should give credible and intelligence information to the police, so that this menace will be curtailed,” he said.
Meanwhile, the newspaper had reported that some concerned residents of Birshin Fulani in a press release signed by one Abdulhamid Jibrin Birshi, on behalf of the Birshin Fulani Community, blamed political office holders in the state, including the State Governor, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, for their inability to act.
He said, “We note with dismay the inability of people in positions of power to do the needful. For instance, from the lowest to the highest political office holders in the land who usually storm our community in search of votes during the campaigns, only the Deputy Speaker paid a condolence visit.”
“None of our elected office holders finds it worthy to either sympathize with us or help take a concrete measures that will guarantee our safety and security from the killer gunmen who find pleasure in destroying our hard-earned peace.
“From the member of the State House of Assembly, Danlami Kawule to the House of reps, Yakubu Shehu Abdullahi, to the Senate member Lawal Yaya Gumau and down to the Governor of Bauchi State, we did not see any concrete support from you people to help us move out of the current security limbo we are in as a community,” Birshi claimed.
