Why the police in S-South cannot confront men of the underworld killing their officers

A Divisional Police Officer, DPO, in a South-South state told Sunday Vanguard secretly: “In my station, we have only three AK 47 rifles and one patrol van allocated to us from the State Command. The Commissioner is aware that we do not have arms to fight men of the underworld.

“How I manage is that at night, I deploy some policemen to guard the station with two of the AK 47 rifles, because we cannot afford a situation where criminals overrun our station at night or suspects in the cell break loose with no weapon to challenge them, while I send a patrol team out with just one AK-47 rifle.

“In other words, only one policeman in the patrol team has weapon. So they must pray not to run into armed robbers, but if they meet ‘bad boys’, you know there is nothing they can do with one AK 47 rifle against people carrying more sophisticated weapons”.

He went on, “So when you hear that policemen are disarmed or they are scared to face armed robbers, this is part of the reasons. In the case of an under-attack resident within the neighbourhood calling our Division in the night, the patrol team has to weigh its options before moving in; otherwise, the heavily-armed gang will finish them”.

Vanguard, November 18, 2018

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