Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
The Commissioner of Police, Oyo State Command, Nwachukwu Enwonwu, on Monday assured residents of the state of the emergence of a better police than has ever been seen in the history of the pace setter state.
He gave the assurance in his closing remarks at the end of a medical and psychological examination of the personnel of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in the state command, in line with the instruction of the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu.
Enwonwu enjoined members of the public to make use of the command’s Public Complaint Bureau (PCB), a unit under the Public Relations wing of the command, set-up to treat cases of police unprofessional conduct, acts or omission. He urged the good citizens of the state to take advantage of the newly launched online platform for reporting such cases and he promised to deal with erring officers.
The CP advised strongly that the good citizens of state should stop taking laws into their hands and imbibe the habits of reporting to the appropriate authority.
Enwonwu, however, condemned high handedness and unprofessional conduct of some of the disbanded SARS personnel. He urged them to embrace human rights-based policing in the various formations that they would be posted.
He stated further that the former officers and men of SARS were made to pass through three stages of examinations, which are debriefing, medical and psychological evaluation. At the debriefing stage, he said they were questioned with the aim of ascertaining their level of mental balance, towards the disbandment of the unit and to see if they are fit for possible deployment into other units.
The medical examination stage featured taking of urine samples from officers and men to determine the presence of hard drug of any kind. The procedure was “geared toward ascertaining whether the behaviour of the operatives is influenced by drugs.”
On the psychological evaluation stage, Enwonwu said based on the result of the medical test and answers provided in the PSCU protocol questions, a team of psychological experts would handpick those who need intensive medical and psychological attention for treatment with immediate effect.
The CP also made it known that the Inspector General of Police is “working hard to engender a police based on respect for fundamental human rights.”