OTUNBA GANIYU ABIRU: LOCAL GOVERNMENT CHAIRMEN IN IKORODU SHOULD ENSURE MONTHLY FINANCIAL SUPPORT IS ALLOCATED TO THE VIGILANCE GROUP ~ INN Nigeria

• 

As you might have rightly observed this Year’s celebration is devoid of the usual glitz, and glamour the festival has been noted for in the last 28 years, courtesy of Covid-19 which is having some deleterious effects on our social well being and economic activities.

However, despite the inhibitive factors of the contagion and in order to keep hope alive, the Association during the week in consonance with its programmes have done the followings:

(i) Provided Uniforms/Bursary to indigent pupils in some primary schools

(ii) Commissioned three

(iii) Boreholes with ancillaries and generators in one primary school each in lkorodu Local Government, Ikorodu North LCDA, and Ikorodu West LCDA respectively.

Carping it up with today’s lecture which is aimed at engaging our minds at the myriads of problems militating against our socio-economic and political relevance in the scheme of things in Lagos State.

We have therefore endeavoured to get people with adequate exposure and knowledge to inspire our thoughts so that collectively, we can ruminate on our challenges and thereafter come up with acceptable formulae that will open lkorodu to a new era of socio-economic and political transformation.

I do not want to bore you reeling out the intimidating credentials right from the Chairman of today’s occasion, to the Guest Speaker and Discussants.

A cursory perusal of the programme will reveal that it is an assemblage of people from the Academia, politics, Business and also
from the largest demography in our Community.

I therefore have no worries that our enterprise today will be a worthwhile adventure.

Your Royal Majesty, Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen, even though l am not the Guest lecturer, we cannot gather here today without talking about the hydra headed monster, which has continued to create fear in the minds of the elderly and the young ones.

Cultism has become an albatross adversely affecting the socio-economic fabric of our Community. People are now thinking that lkorodu is not a safe place not only to live but to invest and this kind of fear will be injurious to the economic growth of our Division even though some of those incidents attributed to Cultism have been highly orchestrated beyond reality.

I am aware that some people are here to discuss the issue of Cultism but as you will agree with me, the issue of Cultism borders on security and it is unwise to discuss Security Strategies in the open. I must State here that I have received several phone calls and visitations from concerned citizens of this Division and always assured them that our Kabiyesi, Alaiyeluwa Oba Kabir Adewale Shotobi, the Ayangbure of lkorodu and other Obas are working round the clock to ensure that the menace of Cultism which has now engulfed the entire division becomes a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, I want to use this medium to appeal to our brothers and others who belong to this Cultic groups to please sheathe their swords and embrace peace.

We cannot on the basis of unnecessary rivalry be killing and decimating the vibrant young ones in our communities just to prove the supremacy of one group over the other.

These are young ones with brighter future. Let us reinvest our zeal and energy into more productive. Something that will benefit everybody and help in accelerating the development of the Community.

At this juncture, I must commend the Onyabo vigilance group for their efforts at ensuring that lkorodu Division regained its lost glory of peace, harmony and tranquility.

However the continued efficient service of the Onyabo is predicated on availability of funds and with the present financial position of the group, I can safely say that they are working under financial strains with its consequential debilitating effects on morale and courage.

I therefore appeal to all Local Government Chairmen to please adopt the vigilance group in their domains by ensuring that certain reasonable amount is allocated to them on a monthly basis.

The Local Government Chairmen should know that they’re the Chief Security Officers of their domains and preservation of lives and properties is one core responsibility of the Chairmen.

The Onyabo mnagement should therefore write to the Chairmen for financial assistance which hopefully will receive their favorable consideration and  approval.

The Onyabos should also eschew rivalry that could affect its cohesion and focus.

The Security Endowment Fund initiated by the Ayangbure of Ikorodu should be restructured and reinvigorated with a special appeal to the elites to donate generously to the fund.

The Elites should know that they can only sleep comfortably & enjoy themselves if the
Community is peaceful.

I want to seize this opportunity to call on the Police to please improve on their information gathering methodology as some of the attacks and counter attacks by the Cultists could have been nibbed in the bud with good intelligence surveillance.

This is not to excoriate the police but to
Encourage them that much is yet to be accomplished in the area of security architecture of this Division.

The Police must see the Onyabo group as a formidable ally and therefore, the Government must continue to support the Onyabo in their complimentary roles on Security as well as Fulfil its earlier promise of providing jobs to some of the born-again Cultists who surrendered their weapons and ammunitions to government a few years back.

Even though, it was the previous administration that made the promise, Government, being a continuum, it is
expected that the current government will take it from where the last administration stopped and give hope to the despaired.

A fulfillment of this promise would have taken some of the Cultists off the group. An idle hand they say is a deyil’s workshop

To the parents, we have a lot of work to do. The need to monitor the activities of our children & wards is very crucial at this time.

The Secondary School Students are now being inducted and this portends an ominous sign for the future of the Community.

To all of us here, Security is a collective responsibility and therefore should not be left in the hands of the Police or the Onyabo.

Without peace there cannot be any progress.
We should at this critical time of our security challenges uphold the dictum “each for all and all for each”.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, wherever you may be, whatever Job you are engaged in. whatever religion you practice, man or woman, young or old, Indigenes on non-Indigenes, it is Important we all resolve today to continually render altruistic Community Service that will endure through the generations.