“My Mission Is To Curb Kidnapping, Indiscipline Among Officers” – Zone 17 AIG, Adebowale

By Ayodele Oni

The new Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 17 comprising Ondo and Ekiti states,  Williams Adebowale, has embarked on recapturing of hot spots in the state especially areas where kidnapping is rampant.

Some of the identified spots are Ita- Ogbolu, which is along Ondo/Ekiti highway and Ifon along Benin/Owo road.

The AIG, who resumed last week in Akure, headquarter of the zone, during interraction with journalists in Akure,  vowed to provide maximum security for commuters traveling on these roads which have become  notorious route for armed hoodlums and other criminalities.

According to him, “kidnapping along Ondo-Ekiti road especially Ita-Ogbolu, we will supervise the state commands to ensure they function more effectively by analysing the crime situation.

“We will look at the matrix and the statistics of what happened in the past few months, the spread of the crime, the area where certain crimes used to occur so that we will be able to work proactively to prevent possibly the crime from occurring and ensure prompt response to where they occur.

The former Commissioner of Police in Oyo State assured that zone 17, under his watch, will collaborate with the Western Security Network Agency, codenamed Amotekun and other security agencies in the states to ensure peaceful environment.

“Just today, we visited the Amotekun and we let them know that we will continue the relationship that is existing and we will also improve on it because no agency can do it alone, it is when we work together that we can ensure that the people of the state enjoy peaceful environment.

“All people want is a peaceful environment, it is for us to work together to maintain and improve the level of security within the zone.”

The AIG emphasized that the zone under his watch would not condone any act of corruption and indiscipline from officers and men, that would dent the image of the force.

“We will continue to look inward to ensure that the we don’t allow any bad egg in police or sweep under the carpet where officers have done things unprofessional.

“It is the directive of the Inspector General of Police that we must always ensure that we keep tap on our boys and make sure they are punished everytime they misbehave or commit any offence. It is a challenge to every other persons to expose any colleague who misbehave for punishment.

“People come in with their character when they join the police, but we will ensure that we constantly monitor our officers and ensure they stay within the procedure and the regulations of the police force.

“Every other agencies are expected to be disciplined because their officers carried gun and it is not the interest of anybody to cover them, it is just as if someone is sitting on the keg of gun powder. That is why we don’t take indiscipline lightly, and we have zero tolerance for indiscipline.

He assured residents of Ondo that the police is adequately monitoring the political crisis in the state

“I believe things are back to normal but the command is monitoring the situation and when need demands, our intelligence officers are on ground to ensure that they prevent crisis anytime there is a lapse.

“Either we like it or not, some people benefit in crisis and they are the one that want the crisis to happen, so it is for us to ensure that we don’t allow it.”