NIGERIA POLICE FORCE VOWS TO ALWAYS PROTECT INFORMANTS IDENTITIES.
By Babangida Galleon
Protecting and preserving the identities of informants of any form of crime reported have been described as essential for every police officer of the Nigeria Police Force.
This was made known by the Adamawa State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP
Sulaiman Yahaya Nguroje during an exclusive interview with Radio Nigeria Fombina news in Yola.
Sulaiman Nguroje said to maintain checks and balances on reported cases, men of the Nigeria police force do not hasten prosecution without a thorough investigation into the crime in question, that is why it is expected of every police officer not to go out and carry out arrest using force but rather invite the accused person respectfully.
” every police officer is expected not to go out and exercise arrest using force, all we are interested in is to invite somebody respectfully even if we are not respecting him because of the allegation leveled against him”
Responding to the question of why the general public is losing confidence in the Nigeria police force while the police are supposed to be the friend of the general public, DSP Sulaiman Nguroje said this change in perception has been going on for a long that is why Nigeria police are always cautioning its officers not go into illegal activities and arresting people for other people’s offenses or infringing on people’s fundamental human rights.
“nobody will be arrested in place of another person’s offense, we further stated that you cannot be arrested for a civil matter, police officers should desist absolutely from investigating civil matters such as debt, rape, divorce, and inheritance. All these are civil the police lacks absolute jurisdiction to entertain into that”.
Talking about community policing, DSP Sulaiman Nguroje said it is a welcome development saying the initiative introduced by the Inspector General of Police is a good development generally accepted by all and in Adamawa state, about 250 persons through the state government have volunteered to work for the police and have been sent to police college Maiduguri where they were trained and adjudged to be competent enough to join the police officers in their communities and help them in policing that community.
“They have the responsibility of marrying themselves with the police officers virtually to investigate all cases, to assist the police in apprehending anyone that is alleged to have committed any offense and volunteer in giving useful information”.
While calling on the general public to report any suspicious person or incident in their communities, the PPRO also called on them to report any maltreatment by any uniform personnel to their (superiors) Divisional Police Officer of the nearest police officer.
“violating human right is something that the command frowned at because we must protect human rights not to introduce a circle within which it will stand to be a threat to humans”.
He equally provided the general public with emergency phone numbers directed by the police commissioner to be given which that can be used in proving the police with useful information on suspicious movement of persons or at times of distress or on sighting any released kidnapper (s) moving around which are 08089671313 ( for calls), 08107364974 (for WhatsApp) and 08053873226 ( text messages) indicating the address and name of the suspect.
