Reviewing the state of preparedness to deal with various attacks being carried out by men of the underworld, the Plateau State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Dipo Ayeni, has said the police are ill-equipped, ill-funded and their training haphazard.

Speaking at the stakeholders security meeting he convened to discuss the forthcoming New Year celebration, the police commissioner told those calling on him to dispatch more men and equipment to places of worship for the New Year service to hold in churches that the state command would need state-of-art equipment to be able to guarantee everyone safety, which is not available in the country.

He said he had recently visited a foreign country where he saw a police sergeant with equipment which he, as a police commissioner, did not have, adding that with few men on the field but with the type of equipment that were available elsewhere, it was possible for few men to police the whole area without moving about. Mr. Ayeni, who remarked that every society got the type of police it deserved, added that there was nowhere he knew but in Nigeria that policemen worked for 24 hours and hardly went on leave.

While being optimistic that Nigeria would still get to the place where the advanced countries were today in terms of equipping the police, he urged everyone to be vigilant and provide police with useful information to enable them track down criminals in the society.
In his response to the police commissioner’s comment, the Arch Bishop of Jos, Ignatius Kaigma, said while he sympathised with the position policemen in Nigeria have found themselves, said people should not be tired of appealing to the Federal Government to properly equip and fund the police.

While commending the state police commissioner for the steps he had taken to bring together leaders of the different sects and religions, he urged the people to begin to trust one another. He noted that while leaders of the two major religions had come out to condemn the various bomb blasts and the activities of the Boko Haram, some people still doubted their sincerity.
He said when the Sultan of Sokoto spoke on national television to say those who carried out the bombing were evil men and condemned their activities, some Nigerians were still doubting his sincerity, saying if Nigerians failed to embrace and trust one another, it might become impossible to find solution to the problems at hand.

At the stakeholders meeting, the leader of the Bomb Squad of the state Police Command in charge of Plateau and Bauchi, ASP Abel Mbibi, displayed some of the explosives recovered in some places in Jos and Bauchi and enlightened the public on how they worked.
He explained how the different tins and cylinders used in packing the explosives could be detected and told those at the meeting to educate their members, children and wards to be wary of picking objects from the ground and to alert the police once they noticed unusual objects attached to the tins.

Meanwhile, the state police command has banned the movement of motorcycles from 6.00am of December 31, 2011 to 6.00pm of January 1, 2012. A statement signed by the state police commissioner reads: “The state Police Command, after due consultation with the executive of the Motorcycle Riders Association in the state, wishes to inform members of the public that the movement of motorcycles will be banned as from 0600hrs of December 31, 2011-1800hrs of January 1, 2012. This is a mechanism to ensure a peaceful and violence-free New Year celebration.”

The release further reminded parents that the ban of firing knockout was still in force and anybody who flouted the directive would be arrested and prosecuted.

Read more at http://sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2011/dec/30/national-30-12-2011-004.html

Is he just realising this?