WorldStage– The Kogi and Edo State Police Commands have launched an intensive joint border security patrol following a surge in highway abductions and banditry along their shared boundary.
The Kogi State Commissioner of Police, CP Naziru Bello Kankarofi, and his Edo counterpart CP Patrick Daaor, personally led a joint command patrol at Aguda Village along the busy Okene–Auchi Expressway on Thursday, August 13, 2026.
The direct trigger for this heightened deployment was a recent mass kidnapping where gunmen intercepted travelers on the Okene–Auchi highway and dragged multiple victims into the forest corridors.
The operation involves a heavy tactical footprint, bringing together the Area Command Okene, the 77 Police Mobile Force Squadron, Anti-Kidnapping Units, and Violent Crime Response Units from both states, alongside Nigerian Army detachments from local Forward Operating Bases.
According to the two Commissioners of Police, security forces are actively conducting intelligence-driven bush combing in the Ebiya Forest and surrounding Okene–Ajaokuta axes.
Operations, they further disclosed, are supported by military surveillance drones to track fleeing suspects and locate hidden encampments.
During initial sweeps, tactical teams were said to have uncovered hidden criminal camps, recovering items like foodstuffs, cooking utensils, a military jungle hat, and identity cards.
Operatives subsequently set ablaze and destroyed these camps to permanently deny the bandits safe havens, according to the officers.
They said the border enforcement aligns with similar inter-state Handshake Patrols ordered by the Inspector General of Police to prevent armed groups from exploiting administrative boundary lines to evade arrest.
