17th November, 2020
The Edo State Police Commissioner, Johnson Kokumo, on Monday, November 16, 2020, said that there is justification for police officers to use firearms when their lives are being threatened.
Kokumo stressed that police officers will no longer fold their hands and allow hoodlums attack and kill them at will.
Kokumo said this during the inauguration of the 70 vigilante group in Ikopaba-Okha Local Government of the State while stressing that there is a justification for police officers to use their firearms when their lives are in danger or while defending others whose lives are being threatened.
According to the police chief, it is the responsibility of the police to sanitize the state, while adding that the police have made a good number of arrest in connection with “all manner of crimes in the state”.
Kokumo further disclosed that operatives of the force will be on a 24-hour joint patrol with other security agencies in the local government.
In his words, he said, “We will keep talking to our officers not to police with bitterness. But never again will it happen for someone carrying jack-knife to kill a policeman carrying AK-47.
“The police will no longer fold their hands and die like chicken. I want everyone to take the message home to neighbours and their children.”