Insecurity: Policemen to get body armours —IG

The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu, on Thursday expressed the Federal Government’s commitment to equipping the Nigeria Police and its men to ensure that no officer dies fighting criminals.

Adamu, who spoke in Ado Ekiti during a security stakeholders’ meeting said the South-West governors had “shown their commitment towards supporting the police and other security agencies in terms of providing logistics to enhance their (police) mobility”.

The IG said “The fact that Nigerians are being attacked in South Africa should not be a reason for anybody to attack the businesses of South Africans in Nigeria. Those who did that are unpatriotic. They are criminals and that was why we arrested some of them and we will prosecute them.

“The Federal Government has invested a lot of money in securing fleet of vehicles to deploy them on the highways, the nooks and crannies of the country especially in the South-West to enhance the security of the region.


“The vehicles are there, very soon, they will be launched. Then, they would be deployed. The vehicles are not just patrol vehicles, they are fitted with state of the art technology that can help the officers manning them to make sure that the highways and the adjoining roads are properly managed to checkmate the criminals.

“No officer should die in the course of fighting criminals. For that reason, the government has decided to provide all of us with body armour and other necessary equipment that will help us protect ourselves while pursuing the criminals.

“If a police officer is killed, the country loses a lot of money invested in that officer. In that light, the government must do everything possible to protect that officer, hence the body armours which we will distribute to all men and officers,” Adamu said.

The IG said that the country’s policing system had been redesigned and rejigged to be community-based so that Nigerians can see the issue of security as their responsibility.

He said, “Our strategy for policing has changed. The community is now working with us and we are going to ensure that all the communities are represented whether you are traditional rulers or you belong to any socio-cultural group.

“We are going to train people from each community who will have the power of the police and power to arrest. They will be deployed to help the police in fighting crimes. When it comes to recruitment, we will come to your communities,” he said.