Newly deployed constables to Lagos won’t bear arms yet —Lagos Police Command

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, has revealed that the 1,250 newly deployed constabulary officers would not bear arms yet.

Adejobi said, “For now, there is no provision for that. But everything in life is subject to change; maybe later there will be a law that will back that but for now, there is no provision for them to carry arms.”

This was made known in an interview with newsmen on Wednesday.

The PPRO said the constables who were deployed as part of the Federal Government’s community policing initiative to combat crime and criminal activities by the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, would be attached to divisional headquarters in all of the state’s 20 local government areas.

He explained that “They were mopped from all the local government councils in the state. The Police assisted in training them and we had a passing out parade yesterday (Tuesday). They were trained for almost a month; they were in camp all through the Christmas and New Year season; there were no breaks at all for the one month because they had to finish the programmes. They will be deployed back to their various communities to boost policing in the areas.”

He added that “This is the first batch and more batches will be released as long as the state government is willing to assist in mopping them up and release logistics for training.”

READ ALSO: Police deploys 1,250 constabulary officers to Lagos communities

“They were selected at various communities with the help of the Obas, the local government chairmen, community leaders, religious leaders, market leaders, youth wings, and all the stakeholder.

“They will be resuming at divisional headquarters in their areas under the various area commanders. They cannot work in isolation. And if at all, we want to go on operations, they can join us but majorly, they will be into intelligence gathering for us and other normal police duties we do, patrols and others.

“We are going to use them judiciously and they are going to be used for the purpose for which they have been recruited to assist the community policing project,” the PPRO further stated.

Speaking on the payment of salaries for the constables, Adejobi explained that The Lagos State Government would be responsible for the salaries of the constables but said no salary figure had been fixed yet.

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