From Molly Kilete, Abuja
Newly promoted Deputy Inspectors General of Police (DIGs) have been urged to uphold the virtue of service discipline and provide quality leadership to officers and men they lead.
They have equally been urged to intensify their expertise in crime prevention, detection, law and order and carry out their responsibilities within the confines of the law.
In carrying out these responsibilities the DIGs have been told to effectively deploy operational and tactical units, increase crime detection abilities, utilising intelligence-led policing principles and develope the capacity of personnel.
Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), Idris Kpotun, who gave the charge when he decorated the officers with their new ranks, said, “our focus must always be on countering organized crimes, such as armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, corruption, communal clashes, politically motivated crimes and the farmers/pastoral crises.”
The IGP also shared his vision of a police that is willing to perform its constitutional and statutory roles with integrity and accountability, noting that a police force that is devoid of integrity and perceived to be corrupt cannot earn the trust and confidence of the citizens and will not be able to deliver credibly on its mandate.
He said: “We must, therefore, be both responsive and accountable to the country and the communities that we serve at all times.”
“This is why I believe that the police should not play second fiddle in the fight against corruption in Nigeria under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari”
Also speaking, Minister of Interior, Lieutenant-General Abdulrahaman Bello Dambazau, while urging the new DIGs to continue to be loyal to the political leadership, charged the force leadership to, as a matter urgency, take the lead in the restoration of civil authority in the North-East.
Dambazau, who commended the immediate past IGP, Solomon Arase, for initiating the process, charged the police leadership to consolidate on the success so far, saying that the police was supposed to be on the frontline in restoring civil authority in the North-East.