- IGP says 3,700 Police reinforcement deployed to South East, South South
Nigeria’s Acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Alkali Baba, says that over 5,000 weapons and live ammunition have been recovered from secessionists and armed bandits since the launch of Operation Restore Peace across the country.
The Police boss said that the Force has recorded successes against secessionists and criminals in the Southeast region of the country but said they have not been prosecuted and brought to justice because of the ongoing strike by judiciary workers.
The Acting IGP, who said that 1,173 high-profile suspects have arrested nationwide between April and May 2021, stated that a total of 3,700 policemen drawn from various Police units were deployed to South East and South South regions to halt the incessant attacks on Police facilities, personnel, military and other violent crimes.
He also said the Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) squad established in October 2020 to “fill the gaps” left by the notorious Police unit, Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS), was yet to take off.
Baba, who spoke at the Presidential briefing organized by the Presidential Communications Team said on Thursday that “for record purpose, I can briefly mention our recoveries and the successes. They go as follows: in terms of recovery after the lunching of this operation, we’ve been able to recover the following weapons and arms from secessionist and the armed insurgents: One general purpose machine gun, 10 AK47 rifles, nine locally made fabricated rifles, four locally fabricated pistols and 19 AK47 magazines.
“We have recovered over 5,419 live ammunition with 10 improvised explosive devices. In terms of arrest, we have 398 armed robbery suspects in our custody, 258 cult related offenders, 222 murder suspects, 202 bandits related matters and the 86 suspects involved in case of kidnapping. This statistic I’m giving you is from 7th of April to date. 434 firearms of various descriptions were also recovered. So these are some of the things we are doing.”
The Ag. IGP also disclosed that the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) created a vacuum in Nigeria’s Police effort at fighting insecurity.
He also disclosed that the morale of the personnel of the force had remained dampened aftermath of the #EndSARS protest and with the recent attacks in the Southeast.
Baba said the regular policemen and women have not been able to immediately slot into the vacuum created by the SARS disbandment even though efforts are ongoing to train them for the new role.
Speaking on the effort to check insecurity in zones, he said: “The security situation of the country has been significantly stabilized from time to time. But you see, if it is stabilised for a week, then there are isolated disturbances coming from this zone in terms of either attack on police facilities or police personnel or even all law enforcement agencies including the military.
“And therefore, we decided to one, rejig the morale of our personnel, which has been a little bit dampened since the EndSARS came and went away.
“With the proscription of SARS and the establishment of SWAT which has not been able to take off fully, we had a vacuum in tackling most of the violent crimes from a position of strength in terms of having a strike force that is dedicated for that, rather than having our conventional police doing the policing in conventional way.
“So therefore, we try to marshal back this courage of our personnel who have been involved in violent crimes and they lecture them and posted them to the anti robbery sections, for anti robbery patrols and the investigation of violent related crimes which involved of course robbery, kidnapping, banditry, cultism and so forth.
“Secondly, we decided to launch an operation which is tagged Operation Restore Peace and we targeted the south east and south south for the first phase of our operation.”
Speaking more on the operation restore peace, the Ag. IGP explained: “We involved reinforcing these two zones with total number of about 3,700 policemen drawn from our various units which include, police mobile force, the strike force, counter-terrorism, the STS, IRT and these commands were imposed with these personnel with specific instructions, with an operation order that is targeted at stabilising the incessant attacks on police facilities, personnel, military and other violent crimes.
“The first operation in the South East was done on the 18th of this month (May) in Enugu and we clearly stated our mission, we clearly stated our vision and the six states in the South East geopolitical zone came to Enugu.
“All the governors were represented by their deputy governors except that of Enugu, who personally participated. And we launched the operation.”