An Anambra State-based civil rights group, “International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law” has described as unsatisfactory, the role and responses of the state Police Command to the incessant cases of kidnappings rocking the state in recent times.
The group, in a media briefing in Onitsha, alleged that the police in the state preferred engaging in mundane, unprofessional past times like setting up illegal “toll gates” to extort money from commercial bus drivers, and intimidating and arresting innocent members of the public especially traders in Onitsha going home in the evening after the day’s sales for reason of asking them to ‘bail’ themselves with huge sums of money at the station to effectively securing the state.
Addressed by its Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT), Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi, the group said the present Commissioner of Police in the state, Alhaji Mohammed Abbas has since his deployment to the state in 2008, not only shown the capacity to fight crime and criminals, but rather chose to develop a strange blockade to credible information to the masterminds of violent crimes in the state.
It noted that since Abbas assumed duty in the state last year, there had been at least 15 cases of kidnappings and two bloody robberies in which a bank’s bullion van was robbed along Awkuzu-Enugwu Agidi axis of the Onitsha-Enugu express road, and the robbers onslaught on policemen in Abagana at the eve of 2009, but that the command appeared to be lost without a clue as to who to apprehend.
“Even when credible representations are made to the police, the commissioner does not care to ascertain their veracity or otherwise,” the group said.
The group also had some knocks for the state governor, Mr. Peter Obi for paying lip service over the caliber of law enforcement chiefs being posted to his state, stating that the Governor should note that the rule of law and due process are the opposite of lawlessness and executive effeminacy.
“As the Chief Security Officer of Anambra State, he must take full charge. He should be in the know of the brains behind all registered and unregistered vigilance groups and other armed groups in the state,” the group said.
It suggested that it is either the state commissioner of Police be receptive to credible information, sit up and fight crime and criminals or transferred out of the state forthwith, adding that the Anambra State government and the law enforcement agencies in the state including the police, the Army and the State Security Service (SSS) should brace up for these security lapses, before unscrupulous politicians exploit same during the state’s 2010 gubernatorial elections.