The Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 5, Mr. Rasheed Akintunde, says that a study by the police headquarters indicated that only slightly above 20 per cent of the policemen in the country are active and working.
He also said that the police had introduced measures to ensure that the other 80 per cent complement the hardwork of the active personnel for effective policing in the country.
Akintunde made these known during a familiarisation visit to the Bayelsa State Police Command, Yenagoa, on Thursday, as part of the tours of the commands under his watch.
The AIG said he was at the command to have a first-hand feeling of the challenges facing his men and how they were faring.
He said, “The funniest thing is that only 20 per cent of the police personnel are the ones working, the rest are just there.
“Talking about 20 per cent working; if you look at it well, every ‘big man’ wants his own security, they want 30 men to secure them instead of supporting the whole community by saying we should give resources for police to do the work so that the environment will be secured. They only want security for themselves.
“Even religious leaders want personal security. So after all that, we find that it’s only 20 per cent remaining to guard other places. Even for government’s commission too, they can load 20 units for it whereas they need only seven, so that’s why the 20 per cent comes in.
“That is why when a DPO visits a station, he identifies those people and starts using them. You go to the Area Command, it is the same thing, the CP, it is the same.”
The Police boss noted that effective community policing must be hinged on a three-pronged pillars of sound integrity, hard work and professionalism, urging officers and men of the command to love their job.
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He stressed, “You must satisfy three conditions to police well. First, you must have sound integrity, your integrity must not be in doubt. You must not bring those bad things into the job.
“The second thing is that you must be hardworking. Policing is not for the lazy persons. You must be ready at all times because you can be called upon at any hour of the day.
“The other part is that you must be professional. You must know what you are doing. Police job is very difficult for those people who don’t have integrity, who are not hardworking and who are not professional but very simple for a man who has these principles.
“The job is the best; let us put in our best. We are not supposed to be seeing other agencies doing our work if we are doing it perfectly. Agreed, we lack some equipment we are supposed to use. What I am appealing to you is that let us wake up so that we can beat our chest as policemen and say l can do this and that.
“But where we are lazying about; you see some of us running from pillar to post, looking for possible posting, looking for money that is not there.”
Earlier, the Bayelsa state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Don Awunah, who thanked the AIG on his morale building visit, however, complained that the 4,000 police personnel in the state were inadequate to police Bayelsa due to its deltaic nature.
Awunah stated that though there were some pockets of criminal activities in the state, statistics showed that Bayelsa remained the safest state in the zone at the moment.
Awunah told the AIG that though the issue of shortage of personnel was a challenge, the command under his supervision had introduced high visibility policing with human face.
He stated that the new system coupled with the incidence convergent domination system was adopted in collaboration with the Counter-Terrorism Unit, Tactical Strike Force, Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Serious Crimes Unit and the Peace and Conflict Resolution Unit.
The Commissioner highlighted some challenges facing the command to include manpower, logistics, working tools and accommodation.
