Governor Monday Okpebholo’s intensified security drive is yielding encouraging results in Edo State, with sustained forest-combing operations and aerial surveillance helping security agencies tackle kidnapping, secure vulnerable routes and restore confidence among residents, particularly along the troubled Okpella–Okene corridor in Edo North.
Assistant Commissioner of Police, ACP Peter Isagannna Yari, disclosed this during a recent joint security operation in Okpella, where he said the changing tactics of kidnappers had made intelligence-led forest operations critical to the state’s fight against crime.
Yari explained that kidnappers increasingly operate from remote forests, attacking travellers and communities before retreating into difficult terrain.
He said the response, therefore, was to take the fight directly to their suspected hideouts through sustained, coordinated operations.
The operation brings together the police, military, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigerian Air Force, Edo State Security Network and local hunters, supported by aerial surveillance equipment to identify possible criminal hideouts and cover forest routes extending towards Kogi State.
According to Yari, the four-day operation in Okpella covered virtually all identified forest routes in the area, with security agencies recording significant successes, including arrests and the rescue of kidnapped victims. He added that aerial operations had contributed to relative peace along the Okpella–Okene axis, previously troubled by kidnapping.
The police chief said the operations would continue, noting that security teams conduct regular forest patrols at divisional and local levels, while state-coordinated exercises move periodically across Edo’s senatorial districts.
He stressed that sustaining the pressure on criminal networks was essential to preventing them from establishing safe havens in the state.
The gains are also being felt beyond security operations, with Yari reporting renewed confidence among residents who had previously been afraid to travel to their farms because of kidnappers.
He said farming activities were increasing as people gradually regained the confidence to return to their fields.
The development highlights the impact of Governor Okpebholo’s security-focused approach, which combines investment in operational capacity with coordinated action among security agencies and community-based networks.
By taking the fight into criminal hideouts and strengthening surveillance in vulnerable corridors, the administration is working to deny kidnappers freedom of movement and protect residents’ lives and livelihoods.
Yari said the objective was to sustain the operations until residents could travel, farm and conduct their daily activities without fear.
For the Okpebholo administration, the continuing operations in Okpella represent a critical part of its wider effort to consolidate security gains, restore public confidence and make Edo State increasingly safe for residents, businesses and investors.
