Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar

FG To Reform Police With N1.5trn

The Federal Government is set to fund the reform of the Nigeria Police with the sum of N1.5trillion, about 32 per cent of the total amount needed for the programme.

States and Local Governments are expected to provide 28 per cent while the balance has been allocated to the private sector.

Vice President Namadi Sambo, who said this at the meeting of the committee on the Interim Implementation on the Reform of the Nigeria Police in the State House, Abuja, demanded for a comprehensive plan to enable stakeholders to support the police in areas of need.

He directed the Minister of Police Affairs, Caleb Olubolade and the Acting Inspector General of Police, Abubakar Mohammed, to collaborate with the sub-committee already set up to come up with the actual needs by the police for further action.

The Vice President, who advised that the requirements of each of the state police command be harmonised to ensure that standard was maintained, also spoke on the role of the Civil Defence Corps, noting that the corps should assist the police in its responsibilities.

IGP redeploys indicted anti-kidnapping boss in Delta.

The Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar, has bowed to the pressure mounted by the Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan and members of the state’s House of Assembly on the kidnapping spree in the state.

Disturbed by the pressure, Abubakar redeployed the controversial Head of the state command’s Anti-Kidnapping Squad, Dickson Osamwonyi, a Chief Superintendent of Police.

Osamwonyi was two months ago fingered in the kidnapping activities across the state and its neighbouring towns, arrested alongside his team members and detained at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, on the orders of the IG.

His release two weeks ago has since pitched the Governor and the lawmakers in the state, who maintained that the crime resurfaced immediately after Osamwonyi’s release, against the IGP.

Since Osamwonyi’s release, no fewer than five prominent Deltans, including the soccer star, Christian Ogbodo, who was kidnapped while packing his car during a church service at the Zion Prayer Ministry, in Ekpan axis of the state; the former chairman of Aniocha South Local Government Area of the state, and of recent, the cousin of the Governor, Pa, Samuel Uduaghan.

Although, the command’s recorded successes by arresting the socccer star’s suspected kidnappers, Paul Okpoiowa, Lucky Otekere, Solomon Ojakpa, Maduabuchi Okafor, Ogeteni Justice and Ochuko Orukeren, when men of the Anti-Terrorist Squad in synergy with local vigilante swooped on their hideout in Emevor in Isoko North Local Government Area of the state and recovered one AK47 rifle, No 4011197 and 59 rounds of live ammunition, the IG, exornerated Osamwonyi from the allegations, saying, no concrete evidence was advanced against him and the force will not crucify him on mere hearsay.


Fulani, Hausa clash leaves 2 dead in Ibadan

Pandemonium was the order of the day at the popular Bodija Market, Ibadan, when some violent Hausa men threw sanity to the wind unleashing terror on some policemen leaving two persons dead and a police post burnt.

Similarly, eleven vehicles and nine motorcycles were either burnt or vandalized while the bloody clash forced thousands of marketers and trad-ers out of the market, abandoning their shops and wares.

Some butchers whose shops were close to the place left their meat on the table and ran for dear lives.

When the hoodlums besieged the police post, all detainees under investigation were set free, but the quick re-sponse of security men which included police-men, the state security team tagged Operation Burst, men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and soldiers checked the escalation of the crises.

All the stalls, shops, banks and filling stations located in the area were deserted, while the troubled spot was barricaded by fierce-looking policemen.

Speaking with journalists at the scene, one of the officers at the police post said the genesis of the crisis was the clash between a Hausa man and a Fulani who were fighting over a commercial sex worker in Bodija.