The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, has assured Nigerians that security forces are winning the war on banditry in the country.

He made this assertion in an interview with newsmen at the Kwara State Police Headquarters in Ilorin, during his working visit to the state.

Baba said the police is not fighting the war alone, but in collaboration with all other security agencies including the military leading the war and we are winning.

He disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the recruitment of 10,000 additional police personnel every year for the next six years.

He said although the year 2020 recruitment process could not be implemented, the 2020/2021 recruitment exercise would be carried out by the force

The IGP said improved pension schemes and emoluments were underway for the personnel as part of efforts to motivate them saying ” there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

He said working tools and the welfare of the personnel would also be provided and enhanced to entice them to be more dedicated and committed to the job.

In his own speech, the state Police Commissioner, Amienbo Tuesday Assayomo, requested more vehicles, communication and tracking gadgets and manpower among others.

” Kwara State is called the state of Harmony, but with her fair share of security challenges, like kidnapping, herders-farmers clashes, cultism, boundary disputes, communal clashes, migration of people from the crisis-ridden states to Kwara, it has become crime-prone,” he stated.

Assayomo said of the three senatorial districts in the state, Kwara North Senatorial district, which has an international border with the Republic of Benin, in Baruten Local Government Area, makes the area more vulnerable to cross-boundary crimes like smuggling and human trafficking.

He said Kaiama Local Government Area of the state, which has an ungovernable forest reserve that stretches to Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, makes the place a bandit rendezvous.

The police commissioner decried ” the shortage of manpower which has affected the policing capacity of the command in the state, especially now that bandits are being bombarded and chased away from Zamfara and Katsina States.”

He said, ” the concern of Kwarans, is that they do not enter Kwara state through the ungoverned forest reserve in the northern part of the state.”

Assayomo requested the IGP, “to graciously order the return of mobile policemen currently on special duty in five states, outside Kwara to help strengthen the security of the state.”

The Commissioner, thanked the IGP, for his support and Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, for his love for the state police command, which has resulted in his robust logistics and moral support for the command.