Police high command have transferred officers of the Counter Terrorism Unit(CTU) from Imo State command who protested over accommodation and ill-treatment by police authorities to Borno state to fight against Boko Haram insurgents.
No fewer than 100 police officers penultimate weekend took to the streets to protest their planned eviction from their new base in Owerri by their commander, Usman Muhammed Taaba without provision for alternative accommodation.
Daily Times reports that the affected officers, were fully armed and masked, marched in their dozens in front of their base on old Orlu Road Secretariat, Owerri, where they barricaded the highway with burning tyres, shooting sporadically into the air and forcing motorists nearby to scamper to safety.
It was gathered that the officers were being forced to relocate from their base to the new Egbeada Market to occupy the shops upstairs with their families while traders use the ground floor even without toilet and bathroom facilities, an arrangement they vehemently rejected.
A week after the demonstration, sources at the CTU confided on reporters in Owerri that about 60 personnel were given punitive transfers to Maiduguri while some others were posted to other states in the North.
“As I’m talking to you now, some of us are already moving with the faith that we would survive the onslaught of Boko Haram. “That is Nigerian system for you. Instead of them to look into the matter for which we protested, they turned round to give us death penalty.
“We’re working under very excruciating conditions and our commander is only interested in the weekly returns we make for him every Monday while he stays in the hotel in Owerri.
“He doesn’t know whether we survive or not. The worst thing is if you tell him that there was no return, he will order for withdrawals to be made from your ATM and he will happily collect it.
“We were only asking that we should not be forcefully ejected from our base without a provision for an alternative arrangement”, One of the affected officers, lamented.
When contacted the state police public relations officer, Orlando Ikeokwu for reactions, he refused to respond to calls and text messages sent to him.
Daily Times
Post A Comment: