Consequent upon the recent uprise in cases of armed robbery in Ilaro, especially in students populated area, the Rector of the institution, Arc Olusegun Aluko, Ph.D convened a meeting of stakeholders of the Polytechnic.
The meeting which was held on Monday, 18th April, 2022 in the ASUP Hall of the institution had the following in attendance ; the Rector of the institution, the Deputy Rector, the state Commissioner of Police who was represented by the Ilaro Divisional Police Officer, the State Commandant Of Àmọ̀tẹ́kùn, the Commandants of NSCDC, So-Safe Corps, Vigilante Group, the PICOF Chairman, who equally represented the Olú-in-Council, representatives of the Ilaro Development Council, CDC and CDAs Chairmen, the market men and women, President of NANS, the immediate past Student Union President of the institution, Heads of Classes, Presidents of Clubs and Associations, National Vice-president of the Alumni of the Polytechnic, the Dean, Student Affairs, Gentle men of the Press amongst others.
The meeting established the facts that ;
- There is an increase in cases of armed robbery in the town, but not as escalated as it’s being reported ;
- There was no established cases of rapes as being widely reported in the media especially the social media platforms;
- That involvements of disgruntled students, especially some rusticated or withdrawn students who neither leave Ilaro nor surrendered their identity cards were prominently noticeable;
- That landlords /landladies/caretakers/agents do not always document the identities of their tenants with the institution, nor do they participate in the activities of the CDAs, yet they do not provide security for their tenants, despite the high rates being charged ;
- That students are in the habits of night crawling, display of affluence, through the use of expensive phones and gadgets, engaging in free fraud practices, otherwise known as yahoo- yahoo and use of generators for almost 24 hours daily;
- That students have disrespect for the rules, regulations and customs of the Polytechnic as well as that of the host community amongst others.
The meeting thereafter resolved as follows :
- That restriction of movement between 11pm and 4am, especially by students be put in place with immediate effect and that students should always have their identity cards with them at all times ;
- That all generators should be switched off, latest by 11 pm;
- That management of the institution should not only publish the names of rusticated, dismissed or withdrawn students, their pictures should be widely publicised;
- That landlords/landladies /caretakers and agents should endeavor to verify and document the identities of their student-tenants with the school authority;
- They should also participate in the activities of the CDAs where they have commercial apartments and also assist in the security arrangements of their areas ; they should identify tenants who are always indoors without going to work or school during daytime and report such tenants appropriately.
- Houses with more than twenty tenants should endeavor to make private security arrangements
- That CDAs and CDCs should put in place, solid security arrangements and work hand in hand with the government security agencies ;
- That students should cooperate with the management, the community and the security agencies in fishing out the bad elements within them;
- That the security agents should intensify their patrol of the community and ensure that some business people who have cultivated the habit of opening their businesses in the late hours should be prohibited from doing so.
Above all, it was decided that in doing all these, people should endeavor to operate within the ambit of the law.
The meeting finally resolved that the Press men, having known the truth about the issue, should endeavor to balance their reportage of the events vis- a-vis the misconceptions that they were being hitherto fed with
Signed
Sola Abiala
Deputy Registrar,
Public Relations
