Following the bloody armed robbery attack that left 17 dead, the Olofa of Offa, Oba Mufutau Gbadamosi Saturday added his voice to the call  for the establishment of state police.

 The monarch said: “It will be better for the Federal Government to
establish state police. With that they will be closer to the people and to
the state government. This is the fourth time that we will experience this kind of robbery attacks in the last ten years.

 “One of the major problems of the police force is inadequate manpower. We discover that in Offa local government area here the number of
policemen is not up to 50. Anytime we have something like this there will be no reinforcement anywhere. So what we need is manpower. The state government can afford to buy us armoured personnel carrier
(APC), it can afford to build more police stations but if the manpower is not there it is not enough.

 “What the Federal Government needs to do is to employ as many graduates looking for jobs into the police force, Army, Air Force and the Navy. There is a lot of unemployed graduates that are
ready to join these military and para-military forces. There is no security at all in the country. If you were here on that fateful day you will know what I am saying.

 “I don’t want to believe that it is a question of sophisticated
weapons; it is the question of ‘we cannot go there because we are not
enough.’ What they have the military and the police have, but when they are more than the police in number, what can the police do.

 “We have always been involving local security, but you know these criminals when they come they always catch people unawares. There is
risk attached to the use of local hunters, because by the time we get
them involved because of a day like this, the police will arrest them and say they are carrying dane guns .”