The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Disu, has expressed his resolve to build a new police force that Nigerians would own.
Disu, who was yet to recover from the Warri extrajudicial killing by a police officer, vowed to end impunity in the force.
He also promised to upgrade the traffic warden unit of the Force after he was informed that there had been no recruitment into the unit for several years.
Speaking at an interactive session with officers of the Edo State Command during his first official visit to the state, Disu said until the conversation, he never imagined some of the points raised.
He said, “I am leaving here with what they have told me in confidence. And they have been able to open my thoughts. Now I have one or two things to do when I get back to Abuja. Things I never gave thought to.
“For example, an officer of the traffic warden stood up and said for many years now, there have not been recruitments into the corps of traffic wardens. That got me thinking. The traffic warden unit should be upgraded. So, when I get back home, we are going to talk about it.”
On the Warri saga, the IGP said: “That’s impunity. You arrested somebody who was not struggling with you, you brought him out in daylight, and you shot him.”
According to him, “The police rose up to the occasion immediately, tried them, dismissed them, and they are going to charge them in court. That is the meaning of impunity.
“Like I mentioned earlier, the era of impunity is over. We have to have the new Nigerian police force. I know I cannot do it alone, that is why I have come here to talk to them so that all of us will be on the same page.”
Disu disclosed that “they gave me their word that they will have a new police. A new police that the community, the state, the Nigerian people own as our own police.”
Also speaking, the state Commissioner of Police, Monday Agbonika, urged the IGP to extend his support to the command “in the area of logistics, tactical support, and personal development.”
Agbonika informed the IGP that “the command intensified high visibility policing, aggressive bush combing, operations, confidence building patrols, and intelligence driven raids across identified criminal hideouts and flash points within the state,” hence his support was needed.
