Does the Police Force headquarters, Abuja or the Independent National
\nElectoral Commission (INEC), make funds available for election duties to
\nstate Police Commands? This is the question bothering Divisional Police
\nOfficers (DPOs) in Abia state.<\/p>\n
There is growing discontent among DPOs in the state who are worried of
\nbeing made to contribute money to fund sundry \u2018projects\u2019 by the State
\nPolice Commissioner, Mr. Leye Oyebade.<\/p>\n
Police sources told Pointblanknews.com that the DPOs in the state
\n\u2018generated\u2019 N2.5 million to mobilize men for the Ondo governorship
\nelection, N2 million for Edo and N600, 000 for last week\u2019s Rivers state
\nNational and State Assembly legislative rerun.<\/p>\n
According to a DPO in Umuahia, who pleaded anonymity for fear of
\nvictimization, \u201cI have served as a DPO for three years now. I cannot
\nunderstand why the CP has been demanding us to generate money to send our
\nofficers to election duties in other states. All we have been asking is,
\ndoes the Force headquarters or the INEC not make funds available for
\nelection duties? Even before I was posted to Abia, I learnt it has been a
\ntradition in the state command over the years for DPOs to raise money for
\nall sorts of issues that catches the fancy of the State Police
\nCommissioner. Any DPO who defaults is relieved of his position and posted
\nout to obscure positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere do they expect us to get the money from when we are supposed to be
\nfighting corruption? Whose duty is it to mobilize Policemen to election
\nduties, the State Police Command, IGP or INEC? Even with the money
\ncontributed by the DPOs, there is no guarantee that allowances to
\nPolicemen who participated in the election duties will be paid. After the
\nOndo governorship election, you saw Policemen protesting over non payment
\nof their allowances. It is a serious problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pointblanknews.com further gathered that each unit head in every Police
\nDivision in Abia is mandated to make daily \u2018returns\u2019 to his superior and
\nthe DPO, who in turn, settles the Commissioner of Police. The development
\nhas led to a scramble by senior Police officers to backbite each other for
\nPolice Divisions in the state described as \u2018juicy\u2019.<\/p>\n
A cross section of Police rank and file in the state who were interviewed
\nby our correspondent insisted that it will be difficult to stop extortion
\namong Policemen. According to them, \u201cHow can you stop extortion when you
\nare daily given targets on the amount of money to be returned to your
\nsuperior officers? Again, it is from the money we get on the road that we
\nbuy fuel, maintain patrol vehicles and run our stations. No Policemen is
\nhappy harassing and extorting money from motorists, but we are forced to
\ndo so by circumstances surrounding our jobs. You will be courting trouble
\nif you default in making the daily returns. Of course, it has become a
\ntradition among Policemen.\u201d<\/p>\n
As at the time of filing this report, Abia State Commissioner of Police,
\nLeye Oyebade, could not take repeated calls to his mobile number.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Does the Police Force headquarters, Abuja or the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), make funds available for election duties to state Police Commands? This is the question bothering Divisional Police…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n