By Esther Onyegbula

Assistant Inspector –General of Police in charge of Zone 2 Command, Onikan, Lagos, Johnson Kokumo, Tuesday, charged officers and men of the Lagos State Police Command to shun human right abuses, corruption and embrace discipline stating that police authorities will not fail to enforce the provisions of police regulations where infringement on the rights of citizens are recorded.

AIG Kokumo gave this charge at the State Police Command Headquarters, Ikeja, during an official one-day familiarization visit.

According to him, “I want all of you to exhibit enough professionalism in the discharge of your duties. Conduct yourselves as police men and women that you are; you should have a very, very healthy respect for the right of citizens. Let there be healthy respect for human rights, having at the back of your mind that you are a police officer today, one day you will retire, you will remove this uniform and you will be found in the midst of the civil populace.

Therefore, you don’t really need to unleash terror unnecessarily on innocent citizens. You have the police regulations. We will not fail to enforce the provisions of police regulations where we record infringement on the rights of citizens.”

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He said, “We will equally not tolerate corruption. We want to appeal to all of you; there will be zero tolerance for corruption. It is the place of the zonal command to attend to all manners of corruption cases. Therefore, we expect you to do your job with due diligence.

We would equally want to see disciplined officers and men of the police force. When we came into this job, the slogan then was ‘Discipline is the bedrock of the Force’. We will not fold our arms, close our eyes and see that not being adhered to strictly. From today, that will be our slogan in both Lagos and Ogun State.”

“Wherever you are, be disciplined, be professional. When you are disciplined you will not be corrupt; when you’re disciplined, you will be an embodiment of all virtues.  We want to see you exhibiting virtues of professionalism. I want to seize this opportunity to also admonish you to steer clear of civil matters. The criminal matters before us are so numerous, so large. Leave civil matters for the courts. Under whatever guise, you should avoid diving into civil matters,”

Highlighting the achievements of the command in the last eight months, CP Hakeen Odumosu noted that a total of four hundred and ninety (490) armed robbery suspects and three hundred and ninety seven (397) suspected cultists were arrested. One hundred and seventy three (173) assorted arms were recovered, two hundred and thirty nine (239) ammunition of various calibers were recovered.

Vanguard News Nigeria