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The Executive Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, has explains why every resident of Edo State must have a valid means of identification.
The Governor who disclosed this while addressing stakeholders at a security meeting held in Auchi, Edo state. said his administration is concluding plans to commence the issuance of Identification Cards to all residents of the state as part of measures to curb insecurity within.
According to the Special Adviser on Media Projects to the governor, Crusoe Osagie, Obaseki said, “We are launching the Edo State Resident Identification System. Every resident in Edo must have an identity card. The identity card will be linked to the Biometric Verification Number so that we know who is who.
“With this, if anything happens, we can follow up. We are not saying that we will not accept visitors. We are not saying that we are going to send people away, but if you must live with us, we must know you.
“We must have the addresses of all the markets in our local government areas. The idea of markets just erupting in people’s houses and without them being registered must stop. All such markets must be closed. The laws specified how markets can be set up.
“If there is a fire incident tomorrow, we can’t even get there. People will be shouting that we have lost our goods, and because we didn’t register that place as a market, we are unable to provide the facilities like water and all the things you need for people to trade there.”
He continued, “These markets never seem to close. Are markets not supposed to close? Don’t they have a closing and opening time? But these markets never close. People live there. Investigations carried out by security personnel show that all sorts of things happen there when these markets are supposed to have closed.”
“We will have to close down all unregistered markets. If you want a place as a market, the local government council must do the needful and also provide them with relevant facilities for a proper market,” the governor noted.
Giving a general assessment to the role of local vigilante within the state, Obaseki the capacity building of the first 500 vigilante will kickstart on August 22nd, 2022, at the Nigeria Police Barracks in Ogida, noting that only registered vigilante groups will benefit from the initiative.
“On September 12, each local government will give us the list of everybody they have registered to operate as motorcycle or tricycle riders.
“Effective the following Monday, we will start to enforce the rules that anybody who has not registered cannot operate as Okada and Keke NAPEP riders. We have agreed that we will provide additional logistics for security operations in Edo North, particularly the provision of more motorcycles for the rural areas.
Also speaking, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Deke Kanoba, the Egiegbai II of Ekperi kingdom, in Etsako Central Local Government Area of the state, urged security personnel to cooperate with vigilante groups in providing security in rural areas.
