Monday Osayande, Asaba Delta State Police have arrested 1,763 suspected criminals, ranging from cultists, kidnappers, armed robbers and murder suspects within the last one year. The State Police Commissioner, Mr. Ari Mohammed Alli, disclosed this in an interview with The Guardian yesterday in Asaba, the state capital. According to the police boss, “we have arrested and prosecuted 339 suspected armed robbers, 116 kidnappers, 1200 cultists: and 108 murder suspects within a year under my watch”. He stressed that the Command rescued 130 kidnapped victims, recovered 14 improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), 400 assorted armed and life ammunition, 12,456 cartridges and 245 vehicles in all the cases as exhibits. According to him, armed robbery is reducing and no longer fashionable as it were, while kidnapping has taken over. Robbers, he said, now found it much more convenient to grab a person and take him to a place and call for ransom, rather than risking their lives and in the process they get killed. Alli also decried shortage of police personnel, particularly, the prosecutors in the state. He said: “Inadequate prosecutors is one of the major challenges facing the Command. The number of personnel needed to prosecute cases are not there. More often, we received complaints from judges and Magistrates over lack of prosecutors. “But, We don’t have enough of them to prosecute cases, hence we are appealing to government to recruit more.” Alli further listed lack of adequate funds for training and retraining of personnel, accommodation/welfare of the officers, arms/ logistics as some of the challenges. The CP further lamented that he is fighting crimes with rickety vehicles, noting: “we don’t have enough vehicles to operate. The ones we are using now are rickety and can hardly pursue criminals. Most of the vehicles have been on the road for the past 20 years. And, equipment to fight criminals are also a major challenge, too.”
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