Zone 16 AIG Warns Police Officers against Rights Abuse
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
The Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police, Zone 16, Yenagoa, Mr. Benjamin Okolo, has warned men and officers of the Nigerian Police Force under his command to shun any act of human rights abuses and harassment of civilian.
Okolo urged the officers to treat people with dignity and respect in order to gain public trust that is needed to achieve success in crime fighting.
He also tasked them on behavioural and attitudinal change in their line of duty.
The AIG gave the charge yesterday during a familiarisation tour of the Rivers State Police Command at the police officers’ mess, Port Harcourt.
He advised the officers to maintain synergy with sister agencies in terms of intelligence sharing and other critical areas, adding that they must uphold justice fairness and protect human dignity at all times.
Okolo said: “As officers of the Nigerian Police, you must ensure that you uphold justice, fairness and protect human dignity. Our values are to do the right thing.
“We have one, two, three or four persons who have vowed that the Nigerian Police will continually be painted in bad light. We will not allow that. Ensure that you work within the confines of the rules.
“At one time we were civilians before we became officers, so let’s treat people with dignity so that we don’t lose public trust. Members of the public are among our stakeholders. We need to earn their trust to make our work easier.”
Okolo ordered that extortion at police checkpoints would no longer be tolerated, and commended the Rivers State Commissioner of Police over his efforts in combating crime in the state.
He said: Most of us are not behaving well and because of those ones we need to remind ourselves that acts of harassment, being overzealous, intimidation, to mention a few, towards members of the public will 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.
“The persons on checkpoints are there to help us combat crime. This will be emphasised and we will ensure that we enforce to the extent that those who have remained recalcitrant will be brought to book.”
Earlier, the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Emeka Nwonyi, told the AIG that the command has recorded tremendous successes in combating crime in the state.
Nwonyi, however, said that despite the successes recorded, the command is not able to bring crime to a standstill due to challenges that include lack of police equipment, good accommodation, amongst others.
He said: “On assumption of office in the state few months ago, there were pockets of violence at different locations of the but with God on our side the situation is under control as residents can go and sleep with their eyes closed.
“The feats were achieved through team work by officers and men of the command with intelligent policing and regular visiting by senior officers of this command. The state government is also synergising with the command in the area of logistics.
“However, the command is also faced with lots of challenges but not limited to shortage of arms and ammunition, cartridges, grande, Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC), insufficient number of gunboats, and marine police equipment, inadequate number of patrol vehicles, shortage of barrack accommodation for officers and men of the command.”
