By Nat Amogu

The Lagos State Security Council has called for continued vigilance and great caution ,especially while recruiting domestic staff like cooks, drivers and house helps in order to stave off the prospect of being harmed or set up for kidnap by such staff.

The state police commissioner, Mr Umar Manko who gave the warning after meeting with the state security council recently said Lagosians must also exercise caution while discussing their businesses or talking to their business partners because what the Police and security agencies had discovered was that most of the kidnappings  were organized by such people, including relations.

“We have had these things whereby relatives of these victims organized these crimes trying to make money out of it, so people must be wary of their business environment, and partners and domestic staffs even their relations”, he explained and assured that Lagos State was still very safe, adding that the incident of kidnapping which had been tackled headlong by the state government and security agencies was resorted to when armed robbery was rendered unattractive hence, kidnapping became an easy way of making money.

The Police Commissioner urged all Lagosians to ensure that once a victim is kidnapped, the family should let the Police or security agencies know, saying that the families should desist from rushing to pay ransom on the victims which encouraged the crime.

“We have noticed that in cases where we have quick information, victims of kidnappings are rescued without the family paying anything. Of recent, the 16 year- old boy who was picked up from American International School was rescued in Ilaro without the family paying anything. We want the citizens to know that the security agents here have the capability to checkmate these crimes, therefore, we should not fall by paying ransom”, he said.

On what should be the first step by the families of kidnap victims, the Police Commissioner said they should get to the security agencies as soon as possible, pointing out that the number of security chiefs had been made public and should be called in addition to 767 and 112 numbers, adding that immediately the numbers are called, the security agencies would know how to fashion out the modalities about going after the criminals.

In a related development the Police Commissioner said cultism had been linked to substance abuse and that it had come to the attention of security agencies that drugs were sold all over the place, including motor parks freely, adding that security agencies would go down hard on such people who sell drugs as if they sell kolanuts.

He warned such drug peddlers to desist from such devilish crime because of the dangerous effects of the drugs, saying that it had been discovered that people involved in all forms of violent crimes and cultism often did so under the influence of drugs and stressed that government would no longer tolerate such.