The Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, has cautioned police operatives in the country against extrajudicial killings of the people they should be protecting.
Speaking at his visit to the Delta State Police Command, Asaba, he pointed out that serious punishment awaits any police personnel found guilty of reckless use of arms, especially against armless civilians.
He said, “Arms are given to the police to protect lives and property and not to kill people indiscriminately. I hate extra judicial killings and I will not subscribe to it. If any policeman is found wanting in that regard, he will face the music appropriately because extrajudicial killings have given rooms to litigations.
“I will not support any policeman involved in the act. I will prosecute the policeman and try him.”
The IG further pointed out that the major problem confronting the police in Nigeria today was insurgency, adding that the police must find new techniques to conquer the challenge.
He added, “It is a challenge that has become pandemic and it requires modern policing because it is an asymmetric warfare.”
Arase tasked the command to devise ways of organising regular town hall meetings with major stakeholders such as members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, market women and civil society organisation, among others with a view to enhancing strategies that would keep crime at bay in the State.
“There is nowhere in the world where you don’t find crime challenges, and I cannot sit down in Abuja and be dishing out orders.
“It is very important for town hall meetings with stakeholders to he held to fashion out ways of curbing crimes,” he said.
Arase had earlier, during his visit to the Cross river State Police Command, called for the inclusion of community policing into the national security scheme to curb crime in the country.
He said efforts aimed at reducing crime in the country would not be fruitful if community policing was not taken into consideration.
留言