Masaka residents decry rise in crime

Residents of Masaka, a commercial town in Karu local government area of neighbouring Nasarawa state, have raised the alarm over the rising spate of criminal activities in the community.
Worried by this ugly development is, a section of Masaka known as the cadastral zone close to Ruga village and Nyanya Gwandara, whose electricity transformer with other sensitive power transmission materials were recently carted away at night by some un identified criminals.
Blueprint learnt that since the past two weeks, the community has been in darkness following the ugly incident, even as observers blamed it on insiders at the power firm.
Residents also woke up to realise that a mast installed by a telecommunication giant, MTN, in the same vicinity was vandalised with sensitive materials worth huge amounts of money carted way.
Also, within the period, a young man, Desmond Awua, was attacked in the early evening hours along the Masaka up market road by some hoodlums, whom he instead were cultists; they were carrying sticks ,matches and axes as they forced him to surrender his android phone with wallet if he loved his life.
He said: “It is not as if they stopped me in the night; people were still moving about, around 7p.m, yet no one could raise the alarm or stop them because they were looking dreaded and the way they have been operating in the past, people around the area could not dare them.
“Sometimes they make one to think that they are men of the vigilance group, the way they dress, but on coming close to them, you see a different action; I even thin k the vigilance group too should have a clear identity recognised by the security agencies and the public.” Residents of Cadastral Zone community, who were affected by the breakdown in power, have held meetings and resolved to take their destiny into their hands by working on the transformer which is to cost them close to a million naira without any support from the AEDC.
Chairman of the community, who would not want his name in the press, told Blueprint that they have resorted to contributing money to re-install the light knowing full well that their reliance on the power firm “will be futile.” “I would not want to be quoted in the media but everyone around here or who has visited this area can testify to what we are going through; this light you see, we got it through community efforts, I think we have paid our dues enough; after this efforts, the power company must give us enough time before bringing any bill here,” he said.
He said after tackling the electricity challenge, the money that would possibly remain from the contribution made, would be used in arranging a security apparatus for the community to forestall re-occurrence.
Efforts made to get the police authorities to comment on the matter proved abortive as the police boss in charge of the division was not willing to comment.