The Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police in charge of Zone 16, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Benjamin Okolo, has warned operatives of the Nigeria Police Force against indulging in activities that could ruin the good works of the police in the zone.
Okolo also warned that the police hierarchy would henceforth not tolerate overzealous officers, who engage in extortion, intimidation, and harassment of innocent citizens.
The police boss, who made the declaration at the Police Senior Officers Mess, Port Harcourt, while on a familiarisation visit to the Rivers State Police Command on Tuesday, said police checkpoints would now only be used to combat crimes and not for extortion.
He said: “I mentioned earlier that some of us are not behaving well and we need to remind ourselves that acts of harassment and overzealousness, intimidation, and incivility to members of the public, to mention a few, would not be tolerated moving forward.
“We need to be mindful of the usefulness and effectiveness of our checkpoints, we will ensure that those checkpoints are not for extortion purposes, and the essence of checkpoints is to help us combat crime.
“This would be emphasised and we will ensure that we enforce to the extent that those who are remaining recalcitrant will be brought to book.”
“Catching armed robbers is secondary. So, if you make the area calm you have performed excellently, if you are arresting those who have committed crimes, you have equally performed, in both ways.”
Okolo also lauded the Command for its achievements saying: “This Command has done very well and somebody who has done well the next thing is do more.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP) is not unmindful of your successes and achievements, please keep it up.
“This Command is performing very well, you don’t need to pinch an ear of ripe corn to know if it’s ripened. On face value I have seen this Command to be very neat, secondly the officers turned out very neatly, and it’s commendable. They say, ‘cleanliness is next to godliness.’ I believe that your hearts are in the way your outward appearance portrays, I want to commend your resilience.”
Okolo, however, vowed not to let the bad eggs in the zone have their way, emphasising that officers should uphold the dignity of human rights.
“We may have one or two people, three, four, a few that have sworn that Nigeria Police Force will always be portrayed in bad light, we will not allow that, the IG says and I convey his message to you. Please uphold the dignity of human rights, ensure that you work within the confines of the rules.
“The new strategy of the IGP is aimed at achieving operational successes and realigning public trust, we will not have the trust of the members of the public if we mistreat them. Before you pinch anybody, pinch yourself, we are members of the society, I don’t think there is anybody who is from space or any other place, we were first born, went to school before we become officers. So, at one time we were civilians, isn’t it? So, let us treat people with dignity, so we don’t lose public trust.”
Earlier, Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Emeka Nwonyi, who thanked the AIG for the visit, noted that the Command was lacking basic riot fighting equipment.
He said: “The Command is also faced with a lot of challenges, but not limited to these, shortage of arms and ammunition, shortage of anti-riot equipment, such as smoke cartridges, smoke grenades, ballistic helmets, riot gunners, and smoke pistols. That of Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), insufficient gunboats, and marine police equipment.
“Inadequate number of patrol vehicles and shortage of barrack accommodation for men and women of the command. Given the above, may I respectfully plead with you Sir, the Assistant Inspector General of Police zone 16, to kindly look into some of the challenges facing the Command.”
