Operation Clearance!

Emmanuel Adebayo

Lagos State Police Command commences massive clearance of dirts, junks and “arrested” vehicles that litter police stations across the state
By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Sunday Ehindero, recently handed state commands of the force, a directive to ensure that dirts and abandoned items littering most police stations across the country be cleared within a record time.
In the Lagos state, the IGP’s directive is receiving attention. Acting on the directive, the state commissioner, Emmanuel Adebayo has notably raised a monitoring team saddled with going round the stations to ensure the directive is strictly carried out.
A press release made available to The Source spoke of Adebayo’s determination to effectively implement the IGP’s directive. The release reads in part: “in furtherance to the Commissioner of Police, Emmanuel Adebayo’s order and directive to Area Commanders, Divisioner Police Officers (DPO’s) and Heads of Departments (HODs) through various lectures and messages directing them to clear their police stations of junks, scraps, metals, exhibit vehicles, dirts as well as keep their cells clean; maintain proper prisoners lock-up register and avoid unlawful detention in line with the Human Rights principle and stand of the command and most importantly that of the Inspector-General of Police, has scheduled the following officers to visit and inspect police stations, cells, formations and barracks in the command…”
The directive named 16 senior police officers drawn from the Command’s Various Area Commands as those who are saddled with the monitoring exercise. These officers include; Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Tunde Adegunduro and Superintendent of Police (SP) Andrew Obike of Area “A” Lion Building, CSP. Prince Anakwe and SP Haruna Yayaha of Area “B” Apapa. From Area “C” Surulere are CSP Keneth Ebrimson and SP Albert Adeniji.
Also in the monitoring team are CSP Moses Bolatan Babatunde and SP Joel Adaji of Area “D” Mushin, CSP Joseph Ogbeide and Deputy Superintendent (DSP) Yusuf James of Area “E” Festac, CSP V.O. Brown and SP Jimoh Joseph of Area “F” Ikeja. In the team are also CSP Alex Okhado and SP Livingsten Orutugu of Area “G” Ogba and Isaac Odiase and DSP Mohammed Gidado of Area “H” Ogudu.
The Commissioner of Police also directed that the inspection of the stations should be rigidly carried out before and after mid-night while reports should be forwarded to him on 24 hour basis. The Source’s investigations revealed that various police formations in the State have started implementing the directive. For example, Area “F” Command, Ikeja, now wears new looks as some of the offices have been repainted. Scraps, junks and “detained” vehicles have also started disappearing. Such also is the case at Area “H” Ogudu.
The Police Commissioner, Adebayo himself confirmed The Source’s findings. He told The Source, during interactive session he had with crime reporters recently that there was so far about 70 percent compliance to the directive. The police commissioner frowned at a situation where-by investigating police officers arrest both suspects and at the same time “arrest” their (suspects’) vehicles. If at all there is need for suspects’ vehicles to be produced in the stations as exhibits, pictures of the vehicles, according to him, should be enough “because there is no provision for detaining vehicles.” The command’s PPRO, Olubode Ojajuni also told The Source, that the exercise could be a continous one. Ojajuni, like Adebayo, also confirmed that the exercise is being carried out in most stations in the command.
Notably, aside from the IGP’s directive, the lagos State Police Command has in the recent past, been carrying out measures that tend to endear it to the populace. One of such measures is the command’s decision to commence a periodic publication of various criminal offences which the command has prosecuted within the period of five months, starting from January to May 2006.
The Source gathered that the measure is aimed at keeping the public, especially complainants abreast of the command’s activities as well as enable them know the outcome of their cases. The Source also gathered that the new practice is aimed at absolving the command from blame and charges of complicity whenever criminals who had been arrested and detained are suddenly seen walking the streets as freemen, since it is the duty of the courts to try and either jail or set such suspects free. The publication shows that within the period under review, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Command has prosecuted a total of 306 cases.
In the same vein, Adebayo had in March, instituted a five-man panel of inquiry to investigate cases of unlawful detention of innocent citizens by officers in the various police formations in the state. The panel, headed by the deputy Head of State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) Panti, Yaba Assistant commissioner of Police (ACP). Rabiu Yusuf, was saddled with visiting the over 110 police stations in the command. The panel was mandated to ensure that innocent people being wrongfully detained and whose offences were bailable, were freed.
Notably before now, the incidences of wrongful and arbitrary arrest of citizens were rampant in the state. For example, Ebere Okoro, a Librarian with a Lagos based print media organisation has not forgotten the raw deal he had in the hands of the police. He narrated his personal experience thus: “Sometimes last year, I and some friends were in a drinking joint in Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos when suddenly a group of policemen swooped on us and arrested all us. We were thrown into a cell without any one telling us our offence. However upon identifying myself as a mediaman, I was left off the hook but my friends were not that lucky. They were made to buy their freedom with between N1,500 and N2,000. Those who could not raise such amount were left to rot away in the cell.”
At a different occasion, Okoro told The Source, he had to bail a friend who had been arrested and detained by the police on charges of what according to him the police called “ wandering in armed robbery prone environment”. According to Okoro, he was given a prepared statement and the price tag of N1,500 for his friend’s freedom. After much bargaining however, money exchanged hands and Okoro’s friends regained his friend.
Sometimes in August 2004, a young boy of southeast extraction who hawked bottled water in Maryland Bus stop was walking home to his parent’s abode at Ojota after the day’s business. He did not however get to his destination before he was arrested at about 10.30 pm along Ikorodu road. The boy spent the night at a police station located in the area before his exasperated parents located him at the station and subsequently secured his freedom with N1,000.
The incidence cited above pales into insignificance when juxtaposed with the experience of a Lagos based journalist who would not want his name in print. According to him, men of the Special Armed Robbery Squad (SARS) sometimes last year invaded his home in Ojota area of the state on the pretex that they were on a man-hunt for one unidentified person.
The SARS men however, in the process ended up arresting the journalist, his brother and a cousin of his.
The arrested men spent three days in the SARS cell, and were only released after according to him, each of them had parted with N10,000 as ransome for his freedom. The journalist’s story: “Inside the cell, there were some designated areas labelled as “VIP,” “Oven” and “Open cell”. For you to stay in the “VIP” section of the cell you are required to part with N5,000. The “Open Cell” went for between N2,000 and N3,000 while the “Oven cell” attracted no fee at all. However, the “Oven cell” is indeed a hell on earth.”