Sen. Abu Ibrahim
The Senate Committee Chairman on Police Affairs, Senator Abu Ibrahim, on Sunday, lamented the poor funding of the Nigeria Police Force to effectively carry out its mandate of policing the country.
In this regard, Ibrahim vowed to ensure that his committee sponsors a bill for the adequate funding of the force.
The lawmaker noted that it was unacceptable that the police used funds meant for purchasing equipment and welfare of its personnel for special operations.
The senator spoke after an assessment tour of Police formations at the Katari Divisional Police Headquarters, an operational base of ‘Operation Absolute Sanity’ inaugurated by the Inspector-General of Police to flush out kidnappers and other criminal elements along the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway.
He was accompanied by the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Agyole Abeh.
Ibrahim described as despicable the low funding of police operations and the general welfare of its personnel, noting that the issue would remain paramount in the upper chamber when it resumes from recess.
The senator, however, urged the operatives to take the fight to the criminals’ dens in the forests, saying that staying only on the highway would amount to embarking on cosmetic operation.
Abeh, the state’s police commissioner said the officers and men of the special forces deployed in the Kaduna-Abuja highway were the best brains in the Police Force. Meanwhile, the police boss told the senator that kidnappers and other criminal elements had empowered some villagers with motorcycles and cell phones to use the residents as informants.
Abeh alleged that those villagers engaged by the criminal elements could go as far as the criminals’ dens in the forests to inform them of security movements.
He added, “While the kidnappers are in the forest, these informants ride bikes to the forest to give them information on the movement of security personnel. Also, when a vehicle breaks down on the road, the informants quickly call them to kidnap the stranded travellers.
“The kidnappers often use the telephones collected from their victims. They also travel very far from the crime spot and their camps to contact the victims’ relatives on the telephone.
“This is making it difficult for us to easily track them down. But even with this, we have arrested a large number of them.”
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