The Nigeria Police Force Complaint Response Unit (CRU) said it has resolved 324 cases and recovered N2.7 million bribe from an Assistant Commissioner of Police in one of the states after a complaint was made through a telephone call.
This was contained in the third quarter report of the unit released on Thursday, October 13th, by Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police and Head of CRU in Abuja, ACP Abayomi Shogunle
The bribe money was recovered from the ACP after the case was referred to the X-Squad for necessary action in line with the directive issued by the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris, NPM, mni that X-Squad be included. Shogunle said necessary disciplinary procedures are ongoing against the officer involved in the unacceptable conduct. See the full report below:
In line with its mandate of receiving and resolving cases of police professional misconduct, the Complaint Response Unit (CRU) of the Nigeria Police Force has resolved 324 cases out of a total of 405 complaints made against the police by members of the public between July 1st, and September 30th, 2016. 51 out of cases reported during period under review were found to be false while 30 cases are still pending.
Rivers Police Command tops the state ranking with a total number of 78 cases, followed by Lagos with 72 and FCT-Abuja with 48 cases. The Q3 report shows that over half of the complaints against the police came from four state commands - Rivers, Lagos, FCT-Abuja and Anambra which accounts for 55.06% of complaints during the period under review.
No single complaint was reported against the police in six state commands - Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Osun and Sokoto. Kebbi state remains the only command with no complaint made against the police since the inception of the CRU in November, 2015.
Professional misconduct tops the complaint distribution category with 154 entries, followed by demanding money for bail with 144 entries. More complaints were received via phone call – 294 cases, while WhatsApp – 55, Twitter – 20, email – 19, Facebook – 6, SMS – 2, BBM – 1 and 8 cases reported via others (petition letters, media publications).
A copy of the report available at the NPF website http://www.npf.gov.ng/images/POLICE_CRU_2016_Q3_REPORT.pdf shows that the sum of Two million, Seven hundred and Fifty thousand Naira bribe money was recovered from an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) serving in one of the State commands after a complaint was made to the CRU through a telephone call.
Necessary disciplinary procedures are ongoing against the officer involved in the unacceptable conduct just as the suspect arrested in respect of the case upon which the bribe money was collected has since been handed over to the relevant Government agency for prosecution for the offence that necessitated the arrest of the suspect.
The bribe money was recovered from the ACP after the case was referred to the X-Squad for necessary action in line with the directive issued by the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris, NPM, mni that X-Squad be included as part of CRU responding agents. The new inclusion of X-Squad as one of CRU responding agents in addition to State Provost Marshals, OC SIB, Control-Room demonstrates the IGP’s determination in ensuring more effective response to cases of alleged police professional misconduct nationwide.
According to Ag. ACP Abayomi Shogunle, Head of CRU who signed the 2016 Q3 Report, the nationwide sharp reduction in complaints against the police during the period under review is linked to the fact that Nigerian Police officers are becoming more professional in carrying out their duties as a result of capacity training programmes, the zero tolerance of the current police leadership to all forms of professional misconduct and the police awareness that the public can now easily report unsatisfactory police conducts.
The report states that in line with international best practices of building police-public trust, monitoring safeguards are in place to ensure protection of human rights during policing operations nationwide and that more collaboration activities are scheduled with stakeholder – local and international groups in the last quarter of this year. In order to increase the level of awareness about the CRU, IGP Ibrahim Idris has approved the production of CRU information handbills/flyers in local languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba) and same would be distributed to all Local Government Area in Nigeria this October.
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