‎Police deploys 158 vehicles nationwide to replace military checkpoints

Following the recent order by President, Muhammadu Buhari for the immediate removal of military checkpoints across the country, the Inspector General of Police has said he will deploy 158 patrol vehicles to fill the vacuum that the military checkpoints removal will create.



He however noted that he would need the collaboration of community members to fill the vacuum because his officers are not enough. 



According to Arase: “We are set to take over the highway and that is why I am deploying about 158 additional vehicles to the safer highway to take over the spaces that they have just vacated but that does not mean that we are not still going to have collaboration with the military. I had deployed 350 earlier, I am deploying 158 to add to that one so that we will be able to dominate the highway.

The IGP disclosed this in Abuja yesterday at a Stakeholders Consultative Meeting on Improving Police Response to Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Gender Mainstreaming.

The Police Chief who admitted that the officers to man the highway are inadequate, said: “You can never have enough but that is why we are appealing to Nigerians for community partnership because it is the inthing internationally and globally.

“We are going to hold a summit where we will talk to non-stakeholders to assist us in trying to cover the security space. The men we have cannot cover the whole space. No police anywhere ever covers the whole space and have a complete dominance of the security space.

“The issue is that when you want to dominate the security space, it is how you strategically deploy your resources that matters. The most important thing is to give Nigerians that psychological reassurance that there is police presence everywhere.

“The citizens also have a function to perform in internal security management. It is not just the police business, it is a collective thing”, he explained.

Speaking on police response to sexual and gender based violence, Arase said he would set up a technical platform that would solely address gender based violence.

According to him: “We have been trying to see how to put a technical platform in place because we discovered that we lack the capacity to deal with issues whenever it involves gender.

“If you go to police stations and meet police officer at the desk, some of the questions they ask when it has to do with gender based offences sometimes could be very embarrassing. I approached a foundation and asked them to help us set up a technical platform where the contact between somebody who is genderly abused is outside the purview of the police stations.

“What we intend to achieve is to ensure that the platform is connected to all the major hospitals in all the country and all the gender based societies that we have. In case there is any complaint, instead of having to go to the police station, you can use that platform and there are officers who are being trained. Once the complaint hits the platform, we will easily respond.

He Assured that the men who will be in charge of the platform will be well trained.

“We will train officers who will be able to man the platforms to ensure that whenever the complaints are made, response to the complaints should be professional enough, should be friendly enough so that people who are using the platform will develop confidence in the Force. A Force that cannot respond to the needs of the public that they are supposed to serve, from the onset, it is failed. Any police force in the world should be sensitive to the public they serve”, he said.

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