Amidst growing concern among many Abia residents, and in most States of the Southeast region over the perceived extortionist tendencies, harassment of innocent and vulnerable citizens, and other glaring cases of unprofessional conducts by some security personnel of most security agencies, the authorities of the Abia State Police Command have warned that they will not hesitate to visit the full weight of the law on any erring operatives.
At a meeting with Area Commanders, Divisional Heads, and other strategic officers of police formations in the State on Thursday May 16 2024, the Commissioner of Police CP Kenechukwu Onwuemelie directed them to embark on a serious and regular sensitization of police personnel under their Command on the need to always perform their duties within the confines of the extant rules and regulations guiding the service.
The CP insisted that reported and proven cases of unprofessional conducts, illegal duties and molestation will not be swept under.
Further emphasising the imperativeness of police personnel, observing a reasonable level of decorum in the line duty, CP Onwuemelie informed that the Video Complaint Response Unit CRU of the Command has been made available to the public, to aid in tracking and capturing observed unprofessional conducts by police personnel.
The interactive session between the CP and police formations heads,also provided a veritable platform for them to xray some of the challenges militating against effective service delivery ,as well as ways of resolving them.
The Source reports that in recent times, the operational ethos of most of the security agencies in not just Abia ,but most states in the Southeast geo-political zone have come under intense public scrutiny, with many questioning the real motives behind the litany of police, Army and Customs checks points in the region .
Besides the outrageously astronomical numbers of the security check points ,the perceived unprofessional conducts of some of the security operatives manning the check points as eloquently signposted by open extortions and dehumanization of innocent citizens, have tended to cast a huge cloud on their integrity .
Instructively, the Abia CP’s warning against extortion, came on same day as the vice was believed to have been at centre of a ghastly road accident at a police check point on the long stretch Enugu/ Port Harcourt highway, in which over 15 persons were feared crushed to death .
Witnesses ,said the fatal road mishap, involving an 18 seater commuter bus ,and a long truck occurred when the driver of the truck lost control and had to ram into the bus waiting to be clear by police personnel at the check point.
The unfortunate incident came on the heels of the death of an Aba based business man Emmanuel Michael, Okocha on April 19 as a result of gunshot wounds fired by a police officer at a police check point along Aba/Owerri road Aba.
The fatal short was said to have been a fired, due to the alleged refusal of the victim to offer money to the men of the Rapid Response Squad RRS at the check point.
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