Withdrawal of military: I-G assures adequate security

Arase

Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase

Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase
Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase

The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase, on Tuesday re-assured Nigerians of adequate security after road blocks mounted by the military were dismantled following President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive.

Arase gave the assurance while fielding questions from newsmen shortly before he held a closed-door meeting with senior officers.

“The president has given a directive that our colleagues in the military should withdraw from some of the areas that they were mounting road blocks.

“The withdrawal of soldiers should not create any fear in the mind of Nigerians, we have done it before and we are going to do it again,” he said.

Arase said that the meeting would discuss modalities to fill the vacuum that had been created by the military withdrawal, as well as strategies to provide adequate internal security.

Arase said that already the police had deployed 555 patrol vehicles to secure highways across the country.

According to him, “Nigerians will not want to listen to excuses from us – police’’.

“We have opportunity now and this is a nice opportunity for us to take over our mandate of providing internal security,’’ he said.

Related News

The I-G said the police would continue to collaborate with the military and Department of State Services (DSS) on securing the nation as they were constitutionally bound to complement the police.

“Asking us to take over the responsibility of the road blocks which originally was supposed to be ours will not create any vacuum,” he said.

Arase also clarified that though the police had earlier dismantled their rock blocks, they could lock down any highway at any time for a stop and search if the need arose.

“Let me quickly tell Nigerians that if we say that we are not going to have road blocks, it does not mean we cannot stop and search occasionally.

“When there is intelligence, highway could be locked down for search. So, once in a while, it is part of our preventive mechanism to deal with internal security issues,” he said.

Speaking on intervention to address cultism and kidnappings in Edo, Ekiti and Kogi , Arase said that all suspects arrested in connection with those crimes had been charged Court.

He, however, charged Commissioners of Police to brace up to address crimes in their respective states to avoid a situation where the Police Headquarters would always intervene to tackle such crimes.

Load more