Security agents in Anambra State have told local community leaders and natives of Awka, the host community of the State’s capital city, to work-their-talk to end cult killings and other violent crimes in the metropolis.
At a Security Summit on Wednesday, the people expressed worries over the protracted cult related clashes that have turned their lands into pools of blood, and affected socio-economic activities in their communities.
In recent times, the thirty three villages that make up Awka community which hosts the Anambra State capital have been besieged by the activities of suspected cultists, resulting in several casualties, and posing serious security concern to natives and residents in the town.
Unofficial records put the death toll at no fewer than forty people, mainly of youthful ages between the months of January and August 2024.
Disturbed by the alarming incidents, community leaders from Ezinano, comprising twenty of the thirty three villages in Awka converged on the Emmaus House, Awka to brainstorm with security agents on how to end the insecurity.
The increasing rate at which their children are being killed almost on weekly basis, have become a source of worry to the community leaders who are seeking a way of not just condemning activities of members of the different cult groups, but finding ways of rehabilitating as well as reintegrating them back into a peaceful society.
Representatives of the Nigerian Police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) want an all-inclusive approach of stakeholders to tackle the problem, adding that the community leaders and indigenous people of Awka must rise up to the security challenges and work-their-talk.
The security summit had the theme: “Combating And Preventing Violent Crimes, And Menace of Cultism In Awka Metropolitan City”.
Editor: Ken Eseni
