The Police Service Commission (PSC) has questioned the competence of the Commissioners of Police in Delta and Imo states, following a wave of assaults against police officers in the country.
The commission’s Chairman, Dr. Solomon Arase, while condemning the attacks, stressed that the slain officers were also Nigerians who “deserve the support, encouragement and protection of the citizens.”
This was revealed on Sunday in a statement signed by the spokesman for the commission, Ikechukwu Ani.
The Nigeria Police Force on Saturday said six officers were killed in an ambush in Delta State by armed assailants while undertaking a mission to investigate the disappearance and rescue of three of their colleagues in the Ohoro Forest in the state, while six others went missing-in-action.
This was followed by another attack on police operatives attached to MOPOL 18, Owerri, Imo State, when two operatives were killed on Saturday by gunmen in the Okigwe area of the state.
It was learnt that the gunmen, suspected to be members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra and its affiliate, Eastern Security Network, threw dynamite at the police patrol vehicle and engaged the policemen in a gunfight along old Garki Road.
In his statement, the retired Inspector General of Police said: “The killings in some states across the nation has become worrisome” and called on the Inspector-General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun “to take another look on the capacity of state Command leaderships in the country”.
Arase noted that “there must be consequences for this avoidable incidents,” adding that “any state Commissioner of Police found incompetent, derelict, and operationally/tactically porous should be eased out to avoid these huge police casualties.
“The commission wishes to condole the Inspector-General of Police, Dr. Olukayode Egbetokun, on this unfortunate developments, especially at a time when all hands are supposed to be on deck to rid the nation of militancy and banditry.”
The PSC chairman lamented that the commission has “had more than a fair share of these ugly developments in recent time and called for integrated intelligence policing.”
He “condoled the families of the slain officers and said time has come for state command commissioners to rise up to the occasion,” while he “enjoined the serving officers not to be demotivated by these ugly developments but to reenact their indomitable fighting spirit that the Force is known for to ward off this new wave of assaults”.
