The Chief Executive Officer of Blueshield Security Company Limited, Ozor Chief Jeff Nweke has revealed that the main reason no police formation was attacked in Awka, Anambra State Capital during the 2020 ENDSARS protests, was because his security outfit deployed its personnel massively to protect those formations.
Ozor Nweke made the disclosure on Tuesday while fielding questions from newsmen, over insinuations making the rounds that his security outfit, is enmeshed in a conflict with the State Police Command.
The Blueshield Security Company Limited, established in 2014, was registered with the Coporate Affairs Commission, CAC, to provide security services to safeguard the property and lives of coporate institutions and individuals in Nigeria.
Reacting to the insinuations of rift between his outfit and the police, which he described as ridiculous and untrue, Ozor Nweke said over the years, the outfit had partnered the Police and other law enforcement and security agencies, becoming integral in the maintenance of security in the State Capital City of Awka.
According to him, the outfit came into being after a careful survey on the security situation in the country, which reflected the need to establish a homegrown security outfit that will complement the efforts of the government-owned agencies in securing the lives and property of the people.
He therefore said the outfit from the onset, was never designed to rival the security agencies but to provide them the support they could not avail themselves.
“During the ENDSARS, it was an unleashing of coordinated attacks on security agencies and formations. It came to apoint where there was total breakdown of law and order.
“The attacks on security agencies emboldened criminals, and we saw a situation where we came to what I will call a broken arrow situation and every well-meaning citizen of the state started thinking about how to protect the society.
“So, having the Blueshield Security outfit, we decided to use the platform to get some personnel involved to assist the security gencies, to curb the crises.
“We did our best and provided security for the police stations.
“We deployed our personnels to the Area Command and the B Division all in Awkka, to monitor and keep surveillance of the areas.
“We also deployed personnel on mufti to the communities to be able to know ahead of time when an attack may come so that we can nip it in the bud.
“That was why during the ENDSARS saga, no single police station in Awka was burned down, as against what was happening across all parts of Anambra State and it was through our efforts.
“As an indigenous security company, we engaged experts in surveillance, as well as youths from the community who know what is going on in the community and fed us consistently with intelligence.
“Before then, there was nothing like CCTV cameras at the police stations.
“So, as a corporate social responsibility, we installed digital hi-definition cameras in some police stations in Awka, to give the police vantage position in terms of surveillance. We also provided 2005 Sienna bus then.
“We also decided to furnish the office of some DPOs to boost their morale which was already down after the attack and we also were there for the police personnel, encouraging them and motivating them that the society is still with them,” Ozor Jeff recalled.
He maintained that the outfit sees the Police as a critical partner in the work it is doing and there was no reason why they will run at loggerheads with any government-owned security agency.
“Security business is not only for the security agencies and the government alone. It is for the government, private security agencies, the individuals, everybody.
“So we were collaborating with the police and they can bear eloquent testimony to that fact that we never had any rift with them.
“We have ensured that we kept to the operational and regulations that guide our operations as a private security firm.
“Sometimes, you find that there are areas the police may not be able to cover and they need the citizens and even the vigilante people, who know the criminals by their names.
“So eventually, it becomes easier for these people to be fully incorporated in the security business, instead of the Police officer who was just transferred from another place and understands little or nothing about the terrain in the immediate environment,” he explained.
On the issue of cultism ravaging the State Capital and other parts of the state, the security expert insisted that the society must begin to see cultism as not just a lone criminal act, but as an organized crime syndicate.
This perception, he noted, will enable the government and security agencies, begin to adopt more holistic approach towards tackling cultism for a better result.
He posited; “The area where the security agencies are missing it is the misinterpretation of the whole thing. We must begin to tackle cultism as an organized crime syndicate, so that we have success.
“To tackle such orgaanized crime syndicate, we need to adopt a holistic approach which will include advocacy to the young people on the dangers, exposing their modes of operation and activities, and the real combat.
“These the Blueshield has done. We have partnered with the Nnamdi Azikiwe University because of their peculiar challenges.
“We have provided them with Sienna bus to boost security operations in the University because that University at some point, has become a war zone of some sort, witnessing numerous killings and destruction of property.
“We deployed robustly, our personnel, to patrol the areas of Ifite and University environment, to deter the criminals from attacking as they had planned.
“Also, I personally, have taken the initiative to take advocacy campaigns to our secondary schools to enlighten them on the dangers of indulging in cult activities.
“I also introduced incentives for students who abstain from cult-related activities and shown academic excellence, giving them scholarships.
“We also promise to build a modern computer lab for the students to gainfully engage them and empower them with ICT skills to remain relevant in this 21st century where technology rules.”
