The Ogun State Police Command has strongly condemned what it described as unwarranted closure of banks and other financial institutions in Ijebu Ode and its environs over an alleged robbery threat.
In a statement by the command’s spokesman, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, the police said it was “unprofessional” for banks in that axis to suspend operations despite repeated assurances of their safety by the police and other security agencies.
The police accused the financial institutions of treachery and mischief, especially as they have refused to make available to police for investigation the purported letter written to them by armed robbers.
“The command has noticed that once they are bent on this mischief, they close their minds and eyes to other security arrangements the police in conjunction with other security agencies have on the ground to protect them.
“They claimed armed robbers wrote to inform them that they are coming to attack them, but they will not make the purported letter available to the police for investigation and possible apprehension of those behind it,” Oyeyemi said.
The police said from time to time, these banks “cry wolves, carelessly and recklessly,” yet in none of these numerous occasions has any robbery taken place.
“The command wants to believe that some of them actually want their banks to be robbed, hence these strange set of bankers expose the banks in the area to security threats by making public real and imaginary security lapses to the general public, including armed robbers, rather than quietly discussing them with security agencies and government,” it said.
The police command, therefore, warned that the bankers will be the first set of people to be presumed as suspects if any bank robbery takes place in the area, “at least for them to disclose their ceaseless sources of information.”
Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police, Edward Awolowo Ajogun, has directed a full-scale investigation into the claim that banks in the area received a letter from armed robbers that they were planning to attack them.
The command also assured residents and institutions in the state of safety of life and property, and enjoined all, in the interest of the state, to refrain from raising a false alarm.
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