By Joseph Undu

Residents of Lagos and Ogun States have been promised a hitch-free Yuletide, as the newly-appointed Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone 2, AIG, Kayode Aderanti takes over the command from the outgoing AIG, Abdulmajid Ali, who was transferred to the Force Headquarters.

Aderanti, who addressed newsmen after inspecting the guard of honour at the command headquarters said Lagos is not a new place to him and that he understands the security situation in the state very well, having served as the Commissioner of Police, CP, in the state before. He also said both the police chiefs of Lagos and Ogun states are doing very well and he just needs to support them to do more and to ensure that all criminals in the states are brought to book.

On how he is going to ensure security within the command, he said: “I am going to work closely with the CPs of Lagos and Ogun states.

I will look at their templates in terms of crime fighting machineries and see how we can improve upon them. I have been watching the gridlock on Lagos –Ibadan expressway and I am going to talk to the concerned commissioners to ensure that we take the lead to ensure that our roads are free because anything that pertains to traffic is our responsibility under the traffic regulation acts.

“We have to support the Federal Road Safety Corps and any other state agency in charge of traffic management to ensure that during this Yuletide period particularly, commuters have good stories to tell. We are going to open up that bottleneck around Lagos–Ibadan soon and everyone will see the difference,” he said.

Aderanti also harped on the training and retraining of officers saying, “I am going to talk to the governors of the states to support us in opening up enough space for range. We will re-train our men in weapons handling. Also, the Nigerian Police College, Ikeja will be domesticated to ensure that all our men have access to quality training.”

Concerning the welfare of police officers in his command, he said, “The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim K. Idris has a robust plan for the welfare of the men of Nigerian police force.

‘’We are all aware of the fact that, our country is going through a lot of challenges and we do not have everything that we need sometime. But one thing is that the welfare of the men is of paramount importance to the IGP.”