From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to ensure peace returns to the South-East and South-South says the Deputy Inspector-General of Police in Charge of Department of Research and Planning, Moses Ambakina Jitoboh
Jitoboh has therefore assured Nigerians and residents of the two affected regions criminal breashes in the past few weeks would soon become a thing of the past.
He disclosed that the present administration of President Buhari in collaboration with the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba in their efforts to ensure the country remain one has set up a Presidential Task Force tagged Operation Restore Peace and deepen the community policing in every communities in the country.
Jitoboh,who stated this in Yenagoa during an interactive session with officers, rank and file of the Bayelsa State Police Command, said the phase in which police architectures are attacked and destroyed is over in the country.
He however rated Bayelsa as the safest in terms of attacks on police formations and killing of police personnel pointing out that the state has not recorded any case of secessionist action and has remained the safest.
”Police will ever remain the friend of the people. The constitution guarantees the power of every Nigerian to be a police and make arrest. As you witness a crime, you can make arrest. It confers on you the security privilege to make citizen arrest and call in the police,” he said.
Earlier in his remarks, the State Commissioner of Police, Mike Okoli attributed the peace existing in the state to the genuine partnership between the police formations and stakeholders in the state including the administration of Governor Douye Diri.
Okoli said the new slogan among the police is “Never Again”,” Never again would men of the Police be slaughtered like chickens. Never again shall the Police Infrastructure be destroyed. We are thankful that no police officer lost his life in Bayelsa even during the #EndSARS# protests that rocked every part of the country. It came due to the efforts of the stakeholders with information dissemination,” he said.
Okoli also commended the residents of the State for not allowing criminal elements infiltrate their midst to perpetuate the destruction of police formations.
“The people of the state stood their grounds in support of the Police during the incessant attacks of police infrastructures.”