POLICE CHIEF

Police dismantle checkpoints nationwide, joint military road blocks remain.

Most police commands have complied with the directive of the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, that check points be dismantled across the country.
Abubakar ordered the top hierarchy of the police at a meeting in Abuja on Feb. 13 that all check points be removed.
However, in the FCT, there are still partial blockade of roads where police and military offices are located in spite of the acting I-G’s order to dismantle all road blocks nationwide.
The FCT Police Public Relations Officer, Jimoh Moshood said the Command had complied fully with the I-G’s order.
Moshood explained that the existing partial barricade set up on roads where police formations were located were protective checks for police installations.
The police headquarters, otherwise known as the Force headquarters, are located on the Shehu Shagari Way in the Central Area of the FCT.
In the heat of the bombings rocking part of the North, Suleja and Madalla, near Abuja, the side of the road where the headquarters building is located was completely closed with traffic diverted to adjourning streets.
Except the Divisional Police headquarters at Asokoro, all roads leading to police formations in the city centre, including the FCT Police Command in Garki, still remained partially barricaded even after the I-G’s order.
However, roads where the military offices are located in the FCT remained completely closed.
At Area 8, for instance, where the headquarters of the Army, Navy and Air Force are located, all the roads are closed to traffic.
But at the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Area 10, only one side of the road is opened to traffic.
Also, the side of the road on the dual carriage way at Aso Drive, where the headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS) is situated remained closed to traffic.
An investigation in Ibadan revealed that the checkpoints at Bodija, Ashi and Akobo ares of the city have been dismantled.
In addition, those at Omi Adio and Bakatari, two suburbs on the Ibadan-Abeokuta highway, have also been removed.
Equally dismantled were those at the Podo end of the Ibadan-Ijebu-Ode Road and the Falana-Challenge end of the Ibadan-Lagos Expressway.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Bisi Okuwobi, said no officer would go against the order of the I-G as they were aware of the implications of doing so.
She stressed that the command had ensured full compliance with the ban.
However, a few checkpoints were sighted on the Ogbomosho-Oyo Road.
Reacting to the observation that some police officers were still at some check-points, especially on the outskirts of Ibadan, Okuwobi said residents were misconstruing the I-G’s order.
In Ondo State, a notable police road blocks in the metropolis have been removed, leading to free flow of traffic.
The spokesman of the Ondo State Police Command, Adeniran Aremu, said the Commissioner of Police, Sani Magaji, had effected the order of the I-G in all parts of the state.
The commissioner, he added, had dispatched monitoring teams to ensure that road blocks were dismantled and the policemen withdrawn as directed.
In Osun, All the checkpoints in Osogbo and other parts of the state had been removed.
Until the ban by the acting I-G, checkpoints were mounted on the Olaiya-Abere road as well as the Akindeko-Okefia road in Osogbo, causing a traffic snarl.
Alhaji Rauf Fakore, the Assistant Secretary, Osun branch of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), also confirmed that the checkpoints had been dismantled, saying it was a big relief to both commuters and motorists as journeys would no longer be delayed.
In Ekiti State, the Commissioner of Police, Olayinka Balogun, said the residents must embrace the new Security Alert System put in place by the government.
Balogun made the appeal in Ado-Ekiti while addressing newsmen on how far the police command had complied with the new I-G’s directive to sanitise the force.
The police boss, who said the security system put in place by government ``is still largely underutilised,'' however, noted that the command had fully complied with the directive to dismantle road blocks throughout the country.
He urged the people of the state to register under the Ekiti State Crime Prevention Scheme to enhance quick response to distress calls and effective policing.
He urged the residents to report crimes to the nearest Divisional PoliceOffice (DPO) where there were no policemen on ground.
In Lagos State, the checkpoints mounted by the police on the Lagos-Badagry-Seme border route have disappeared completely.
The policemen usually from the various formations, have not only disappeared from the road but have also removed all objects used to block the road.
The dismantling of the checkpoints on the road has not only eliminated the usual traffic bottlenecks, but has now enhanced the free movement of goods and services on the international highway.
Among the checkpoints on the road were those at Ijanikin, Agbara, Morogbo, Area K Command, Border Patrol at Oko-Afo, Mosafejo and Atiporome, Muwo, Badagry Round-About and the Seme Border Post.
But the Lagos State Police Command said the Joint Security Task Force between it and the army had not been dissolved.
Police Public Relations Officer Joseph Jaiyeoba said the task force was still in force and funded by the state government.
Jaiyeoba said the performance of the task force had drastically reduced criminal activities.
In Kwara, the order has been fully complied with with the removal of checkpoints on major highways in Ilorin and outside the metropolis.
The checkpoints on Asa Dam Road, A Division, Ajasse-Ipo Road, Garage Offa Road and Dangote Bypass have all been dismantled.
The spokesman of the police command, Ezekiel Dabo, said the command had complied fully with the directive and warned that any police officer who erected structures in the name of a checkpoint would be dealt with accordingly.
The police command in Katsina State has also dismantled all checkpoints on the state’s highways as directed by the acting I-G. The checkpoints on Katsina-Jibia, Katsina-Kano, Katsina-Funtua, Katsina-Daura and Daura-Kano roads have all gone.
The Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Mohammed, said the removal of police checkpoints from the highways is an order by the I-G which has to be obeyed because failure to comply will attract disciplinary action.
In Kaduna State, the checkpoints within the command's jurisdiction have been dismantled in compliance with the I-G's directives.
The spokesperson, Aminu Lawal said the checkpoints on Kaduna-Kano, Kaduna-Birnin Gwari, Kaduna-Jos, Kaduna-Kafanchan and Kaduna-Abuja highways had been removed.
He added, however, that the police would remain on the roads to search vehicles plying them.
Lawal said the command had road blocks in Zaria, Danmagaji, on Kaduna-Kano, Rigachickun on Kaduna-Zaria road and Katari-Tarfa-Abuja road.
The command also had road blocks on Kaduna-Saminaka-Jos road and the Kaduna-Kafanchan road, stressing, however, that ``all the road blocks have been removed.’’
The Adamawa Police Command also said it had dismantled all road blocks in compliance with the I-G's directive.
The command's PPRO, ASP Altine Daniel, however, said that ``the much-talked-about checkpoints at the entrance of major towns in the state are stop-and-search points put in place in view of the prevailing security problem in the region.''
Daniel urged the public to cooperate with the police ``at those legal search points because they were erected so as to know who are coming in or going out of town and what they are conveying.''
She added that through those stop and search points, some criminals and stolen items had been intercepted.
The Enugu State Police Command has complied with the IG's directive too.
The command’s spokesman, DSP Ebere Amaraizu, said all the major roads linking Nsukka axis, Enugu to Ugwuoba and Enugu to Umuahia boundary are totally free.
However, police patrol vehicles were seen parked by the side of the roadswithin the state capital.
The Bayelsa Commissioner of Police, Chris Olakpe, said any officer found constituting illegal checkpoint risks dismissal.
For the rank and file, we have orderly room proceedings which can lead todismissal, which can also lead to reduction in rank, and which can lead tosome loss of seniority and benefits.
The commissioner said what obtains now is stop-and-search operations atstrategic locations.
The police command in Jos said it had dismantled all the checkpointsit erected in Jos and other parts of the state.
The police said the checkpoints that were still operating were mounted by the military Special Task Force maintaining security in the state and not by the police.
The command’s PPRO, ASP Samuel Dabai, said no single checkpointis currently mounted by the police anywhere in the state.
Dabai, however, said police officers were present at designated locations to conduct stop and search on vehicles, especially when there were cases ofvehicular theft and also for security reason.
The STF Spokesman, Capt. Mdahyehya Markus, declared that the order of the police authority was not binding on the military.
The Akwa Ibom police command said it had complied fully with the directiveto remove road blocks in the state.
The PPRO, Onyeka Orji, said the command had since replaced road blockswith Quick Response Squad (QRS).
He explained that police officers on QRS were now placed at strategic locations in the city centre and local government areas ``to ensure visible and re-assuring policing in the state.''
In Awka, all road blocks erected by the police have been dismantled.
From Awka to Onitsha and Awka to Enugu, all the road blocks mounted by the police on the expressway have disappeared.
The Zamfara police also confirmed the dismantling of all checkpoints in the state,in compliance with the directive of the acting I-G.
The command’s PPRO, ASP Amirun Sanusi, said any checkpoint found in Zamfara should be considered illegal.''
But in Ogun, the ban on checkpoints has not been fully complied with as checks revealed that about seven of them that existed on the Idi-Iroko road were still operational, particularly at night.
In Abeokuta, the state capital, there were some checkpoints in some areas in spite of the ban.
The usual checkpoints at Oke-Ilewo Roundabout and the one on the Presidential Boulevard near G.T. Bank were still operational.
The road blocks in areas like Kuto and Ibara Roundabout, the Obantoko, the Police Training College and on Kobape Road as well as those in the metropolis have, however, been removed.
Muyiwa Adejobi, the Public Relations Officer of the command, said the command had set up a compliance committee to enforce removal of the road blocks.
The directive has recorded partial compliance in Abia, as the road blocks mounted in Umuahia have been dismantled but some policemen still carry out illegal checking.
Attempts to get the reactions of the Abia PPRO, Geoffrey Ogbonna, werenot successful but the Zone 9 PPRO, Insp. Simon Ajom, said an ACP X-Squad had been set up to enforce the I-G’s order in the zone.
Ajom said there are monitoring teams in the four states of Abia, Anambra, Enugu and Imo which make up the Zone 9 that enforce compliance.
He, however, noted that the I-G’s order, which was meant to check corruption, did not mean that the police should no longer be found on the roads.
In Edo, the police in Edo North Senatorial District have yet to fully comply with the directive.
The Assistant Inspector General (AIG) in charge of Zone Five, Ibrahim Ahmed, said road blocks have been dismantled in compliance with the I-G’s directive.
Ahmed, who spoke through the Zonal Public Relations Offcer, ASP Titilope Otukoya, said they had to comply because most of these road blocks were constituting a menace instead of serving as crime preventive measures.'
In Damaturu, the Yobe capital, the stop and search security check pointsestablished in 2011 by army and police are still enforced.
Lawal Tanko, the Commissioner of Police in Yobe, said four policemen hadbeen arrested for collecting bribe on the road while on duty.
He said the suspects would face appropriate disciplinary measures, noting that the command was committed to punishing any officer who indulged in activities contrary to the established norms of the police.
But in Kano checkpoints still exist in spite of the I-G's directive.
The road blocks are mounted at Gwarzo near the boundary with Katsina State and on Maiduguri Road as well as Zaria Road, on the outskirts of the city.
Similarly, several other security checkpoints are found in the city such as on the Ibrahim Taiwo Road, Murtala Muhammed Way, Katsina Road, BUK Road and Zoo Road, among others.
However, the PPRO, Magaji Majiya, said all police checkpoints within andon the outskirts of Kano have been dismantled.
He said the only checkpoints on ground were “essential”, considering the peculiar security situation in the state. In Gombe State, the road blocks mounted by the police on major highways have yet to be dismantled.
There were road blocks on Gombe-Yola Road, Gombe-Bauchi Road, Gombe-Potiskum Road were in operation.