By Davies Iheamnachor – Port Harcourt

The Assistant Inspector-General (AIG), of Police in charge of the newly created Zone 16 of the Nigeria Police, Austin Agbonlaho, has urged police officers to in the face of the complained inadequate logistics and equipment fight crime to be innovative.

Agbonlaho spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday during a maiden one-day official visit to the Rivers State Command under the zone.

The AIG, who was responding to challenges of the command in the areas of inadequate manpower, logistics, and equipment, lauded the command for its outstanding achievement in crime-fighting in the state.

He said: “I have known that before now the state was bedeviled with many crimes, like, kidnapping, killings, and others, but now your efforts has saved the state from the reports. We have taken note of that.”

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“On the issues of equipment, where there is no much you should always improvise.  You are aware of the training going on now. At the end of the training, we will postmen to the command to cushion the challenge of manpower shortage.

Agbonlaho tasked the state police commissioner to regularly organise in-house training for officers and men of the command, urging it to always be innovative in complimenting lapses in the area of logistics and equipment.

“The command should put in place training programmes where you train your officers on what you know and what they should know. Even the DPOs should also be organizing in-house training. By this, all officers will be informed on current trends.”

He, however, commended Governor Nyesom Wike, for complementing the efforts of the Inspector General of Police in providing logistics support to the command.

Meanwhile, the State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mukan, earlier in his speech had disclosed that the command had put in place strategies to tackle crimes in the state, promising that it would continue to do its best in crime-fighting.

He further mentioned that the command was faced with issues of inadequate manpower, equipment, and logistics, but quickly added that it was not overwhelmed with the said lapses.

Vanguard