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By Joel Anekwe
Civil Society Organisations CSOs in Rivers State have condemned the acting Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, on his charge to policemen in the South East and South South “to take the war against insurgency to the camps of bandits and deal with them ruthlessly,” noting that it “has very high potentials of harming innocent civilians in the zones.”
The groups at a one day policy dialogue on ‘Protection of Civilian and Civilian Harm Mitigation in Armed Conflicts,’ Thursday in Port Harcourt called for a modern policing strategy based on intelligence, powered by technology.
The acting Inspector-General of Police, Baba, had on Thursday at the lunch of a special security outfit for the South East and South South, ‘Operation Restore Peace,’ charged officers and men of the police to fish out members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and other armed groups attacking police and other security formations in Rivers State and the South-South geopolitical zone.
He said: “Those of you who are part of this special operation, I charge you to defend yourself courageously against any armed group that attempts to attack you or attack any police outfit or any national infrastructure.
“Don’t sit down and defend your formations or places of work, go out there and look for them as they are looking for you and deal with them ruthlessly.
“They are not spirits, they have the place they gather, they have the place they sleep and they have the places they meet. Trail those places, go and meet them there”.
Answering reporters’ questions at the event, Salaudeen Hashim, Programme Manager, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) described the IG’s charge as very unprofessional.
“I think it’s very unprofessional, very unethical and I think that is uncultured for modern policing. That is a colonial statement from someone who has a colonial mentality of what modern policing should be like.
“It is very important that he retracts that statement otherwise there will be a lot of potential harm that will come on the innocent civilians”, Hashim stated.
Enefaa Georgewill, chairman, Rivers Civil Society Organisation, RIVSCO, expressed serious concern that ‘Unknown Gunmen’ were winning the war against insecurity in Nigeria.
He also urged the government and security agencies to move beyond the colonial policing strategy to the 21st century policing strategy, adding that the police should be for the people rather than the government.
Georgewill said; “Policing should be for the defense of the law and constitution not about protecting a few government officials and rich people against the masses. Nobody can fight insecurity more than the people. The police should improve the police-people relationship”.
The policy dialogue also advocated the need to recognise that security agents are humans confronted with the daily challenges of the larger society and therefore also consider pushing for the protection of their rights and privileges as security agents.
Representatives of some of the CSOs who participated in the dialogue include; Amaechi Justin of Community Conciliation and Development Initiative (CCADI), Sophia Daniel-Sonime of the Initiative for Sustainable Peace & Development, Port Harcourt.
