The intense crack­down of crimi­nals in Anambra State entered a new phase at the weekend when Gov­ernor Willie Obiano announced his readi­ness to deploy drones and a handful of other hi-tech surveillance equipment to smoke out criminals in the state from their hiding places for immediate arrest and prosecution.
The governor, who spoke at the final test-running of the drones at the Governor’s Lodge, Amawbia before their deployment to trouble spots across the state, also declared the resolve of his administration to sustain the campaign against kidnappers, armed robbers and other organised crimes in the state until they were either driven out or clamped in jail.
According to him, his decision to use hi-tech devices to track down criminals in the state marked the commence­ment of the second phase of the ongoing campaign, which relied on sophisticated intel­ligence gathering and clinical insolation of the flash points of crime to ensure a comprehensive cleansing of the state of all criminals.
The governor, who felt greatly buoyed by the overwhelming sup­port he received from the natives of the state resident in Abuja and the surrounding areas, who collectively pooled about N100 million to support his crime-fight­ing campaign, vowed to sustain the pressure on criminal elements in the state until they had been reduced to proportions that could be policed.
He maintained that with the financial dona­tions and goodwill he had received from Ndi Anambra, he would re-invigorate Operation Kpochapu with a new technological edge that would boost its capac­ity to detect and prevent crime in the state.
“We are moving into the next phase of our campaign against criminals in Anambra State. Our efforts shall be more intensely fo­cused on crime detec­tion and prevention. That is the reason we are deploying hi-tech surveillance equipment to spy on the activities of crime suspects and forestall possibilities of violent crime,” Obiano explained, pointing out that the new phase re­quired a lot of creativity.
“Modern crime-fighting requires a lot of creativity. Criminals are extremely inven­tive and we have to be a step ahead of them to outsmart them. We are relying heavily on tech­nology to give us their coordinates and the gen­eral direction of their plans,” he explained, recalling that the recent rescue of a kidnap vic­tim, who was tracked all the way to Orlu in Imo State, was a clear demonstration of the ef­ficacy of technology in crime fighting.
Said he: “As soon as we got wind of the kid­nap, we moved in and activated the devices. We monitored their movement to their hide­out in Orlu, Imo State and waited until all the suspects were fully in before we picked them up.”
Since he came into of­fice in March this year, Governor Obiano had singled out the challenge of insecurity as a major focus of his administra­tion and evolved a num­ber of highly effective strategies that had put criminals on the run in Anambra State.
One of the most vis­ible aspects of his strat­egy was the erection of security tents that were stuffed with sandbags in all existing and potential dark spots in the state, manned by combat-ready armed security operatives.
In addition to serving as a deterrent, the pres­ence of the trained and pointedly unobtrusive security personnel in strategic areas made it easy for a swift co-ordi­nation of counter-strikes that took brigands un­awares.
The swift and coordi­nated reaction that led to the arrest of Okechuk­wu Nnaegbo, a kidnap kingpin, at the Murtala Mohammed Interna­tional Airport in a South African-bound aircraft remains one of the high points of Obiano’s cam­paign to cleanse the state of criminal elements and restore confidence in the people.

Obiano raises bar on crime fighting, deploys drones to track kidnappers