The Ogun State Police Command has debunked the rumours of insecurity in the state,describing them as unfounded and based on panic.
The Public Relations Officer of the Command, Boluwatife Babaseyi, made this known during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Wednesday.
“I can tell you for a fact that the area in the Ogun State metropolis and the general area is calm, and most of the flying rumours that have been ongoing since yesterday morning.
“In our situation room, we accessed all this fact by deploying our operatives to every location that was in supposed distress, and we found out that all these rumours were unfounded and it’s based on panic,” Babaseyi said.
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According to him, one of the rumours was bred from a personal issue from a couple.
“One of the rumours that was saying that parents should take their children from school was due to the fact that a husband and wife had a personal issue and the husband was going to the school to take the children away without the consent of the mother because of their personal issues.
“This escalated, and people started hearing the rumours from there; that is how it moved out to other people’s ears, and people started sending voice notes and different report routes,” he added.
His statement follows the reports of alleged bandit attacks in some communities and schools in Ogun State.
But the PPRO said, “All the schools that were involved in the so-called rumour of banditry attacks were visited by the DPO’s; the school protection squad was also activated in these schools because we have some intelligence teams that visit schools and we found out that all these rumours were unfounded.
“We even have pictures of our operatives with principals and teachers of these schools to confirm that it was unfounded. People were just panicking,” he stated.
Babaseyi, however, advised the people of Ogun State to always confirm information.
“We enjoin the good people of Ogun State to confirm information from verifiable sources such as the command anytime situations like this happen, and we will swing into action, but we enjoin the good people to always give us credible information and not just the circulators of rumours or be the first to share situations like this.
“Generally, Ogun State is calm, and there is no issue of worth that is bringing insecurity in the state,” he confirmed.
Alleged Attack
Speaking further on the breakfast show, Babaseyi addressed the alleged attack by suspected bandits in Oke Eri area of Ijebu Ode with reports of three family members killed and a number of others abducted.
“That report is unverified, and I can tell you that these are recirculated reports. Most of these things you see online are recirculated reports of old situations that must have happened some years ago.
“There is a video trending of so-called kidnappers who were arrested, questioned, and that video is coming from 2024, so these issues are recirculating because people are not aware that these things have happened before and they are using it to cause panic in the society,” he added.
