Igbeaku Orji 
Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has urged the people of the state not to panic over the recent killing of policemen in Aba by gunmen barely one month after soldiers were killed in similar circumstances, assuring a change of security strategy.
“We don’t want people to panic, we don’t want people to be discouraged. We are equal to the task,” the Governor said, after visiting the families of the policemen.
New Telegraph reports that four policemen were attacked at Opobo Road, Igbor Hill, Aba, where two of them lost their lives while the other two were injured.
Speaking to journalists after the visit to the families of the victims and hospitals where the injured policemen were receiving treatment, Governor Otti described the incident as unfortunate and vowed to fish out the perpetrators of the dastardly act. Otti regretted that the attack occurred a few weeks after a similar incident that involved soldiers and assured that there would be a change in strategy to deal with it.
Otti said, “We thought that with all that we have done including rounding up some of the people that were involved in that last attack, this would not happen again.
“We have decided to change strategy. We do not want to speculate but like you (journalist) rightly asked, it is reasonable to suspect that the enemies of the state, particularly those who don’t seem to see any good or want any good for Abia people may be somehow connected to this. That’s a suspicion.
“We are not going to let this go away without identifying and bringing to book all those who are directly or remotely involved.”
According to the Governor, by the time investigations are over and all the intelligence that is being gathered is put together, the government would know actually where the attacks are coming from, even as he emphasised that his government would not succumb to blackmail.
“We believe that something is wrong and our government is not going to succumb to this kind of blackmail and we are going to fish them out wherever they run to.
“It is still early days but as I said, we’ve started picking up some of the people that were suspected to be involved in the last attack on soldiers and this one we are not going to allow it to die. We are going to follow it through” Dr. Otti stressed.
Otti reassured the security agencies of support and to the people, he urged them to go about their lawful businesses without fear and security agencies and the government were equal to the task.
