TheManaging Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC), Bashorun Askia Ogieh, says the soon-to-be functional Operation Delta Hawk (ODH) is capable of checkmating the rising security concerns in the state.
Bashorun Ogieh noted that the security outfit by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa is coming at a time the state had witnessed senseless killings and other security menace including kidnappings.
He particularly commended the state governor, Dr. Okowa, for the initiative, saying it will help to reduce criminality and enthrone investors’ confidence in doing business in the state.
A statement personally signed by the DESOPADEC boss called residents and Deltans to support the creation of the security poised for the protection of lives and property across the state.
“As a businessman, community leader, politician and now Managing Director of a special intervention agency to improve the livelihood of people in the oil producing areas in Delta State, I have had a long, deep and robust knowledge and encounter with the state of security not just in my state, but the entire country.
“Security or lack of it is the major plank on which the development of any society is built and, over the years, our society, our country has been on a steady descent towards anarchy due to rising insecurity.
Days back, our governor, His Excellency, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, initiated the process for the setting up a security outfit to protect lives, property and businesses in Delta State.
“The announcement has been met with overwhelming endorsement by the good people of and all residents in the state.
For too long, our people have been hounded, harassed and killed by criminal elements, both home grown and immigrants, without adequate succour from the Police and other federally controlled security agencies.
“For a state that is in a hurry and with a concerted programme to develop, the high level of insecurity had become the most important cog in the wheel of progress.
I wholeheartedly welcome our governor’s decision and join the teaming Deltans to applaud him on the bold, practical and people-oriented decision.
“Operation Delta Hawk is a project whose time has come. The gradual overrunning of our communities by criminal elements just has to be halted and reversed. Crime is local and the solution is, logically, local. The Federal Police is too thinly spread, too thinly manned and too detached to effectively secure all the states. Only Operation Delta Hawk has the capacity to tackle the security challenges in our communities”, Askia noted.
He urged the State House of Assembly and all stakeholders saddled with the responsibility of midwifing Operation Delta Hawk to speedy work on its creation.
“I congratulate the Governor for living up to his vow to lead from the front line, like a true and focussed general”, he added.
