The Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone 17, Williams Adebowale, has assured motorists and travellers plying the Akure/Ikere/Ado road of their safety on the road.
Adebowale, who gave this assurance said adequate security deployment of officers and men will be deployed to the route which had in recent times recorded kidnapping and armed robbery cases.
He said safer highway patrol teams will be deployed to other major highways in the state to ensure security of travellers and commuters.
The AIG, who recently assumed office following the redeployment of his predecessor, AIG Ebong E. Ebong, said, “Kidnapping along Ondo-Ekiti road especially Ita-Ogbolu, we will supervise the state commands to ensure they function more effectively by analysing the crime situation.
“We will look at the matrix and the statistics of what happened in the past few months, the spread of the crime, the area where certain crimes used to occur so that we will be able to work proactively to prevent possibly the crime from occurring and ensure prompt response to where they occur.”
The former Commissioner of Police in Oyo state expressed his readiness to establish synergy and collaborate with all security agencies in the state to ensure a peaceful and secured environment.
He said, “Just today, we visited the Amotekun and we let them know that we will continue the relationship that is existing and we will also improve on it because no agency can do it alone, it is when we work together that we can ensure that the people of the state enjoy a peaceful environment.
“All people want is a peaceful environment, it is for us to work together to maintain and improve the level of security within the zone.”
The AIG stressed that the zone would not condone any act of corruption and indiscipline among his officers and men, that would dent the image of the force.
“We will continue to look inward to ensure that we don’t allow any bad egg in the police or sweep under the carpet where officers have done things unprofessional.
“It is the directive of the Inspector General of Police that we must always ensure that we keep a tap on our boys and make sure they are punished everytime they misbehave or commit any offence against indiscipline. It is a challenge to every other person to expose any colleague who misbehaves for punishment.
“People come in with their character when they join the police but we ensure that we constantly monitor our officers and we ensure they stay within the procedure and the regulations of the police force.
“Every other agency is expected to be disciplined because their officers carry guns and it is not the interest of anybody to cover them, it is just as if someone is sitting on the keg of gunpowder. That is why we don’t take indiscipline lightly, and we have zero tolerance for indiscipline.”
He assured residents of Ondo that the police are adequately monitoring the political crisis in the state and said, “I believe things are back to normal but the command is monitoring the situation and when need demand, our intelligence officers are on ground to ensure that they prevent crisis anytime there is a lapse.
“Whether we like it or not, some people benefit in crisis and they are the one that want the crisis to happen, so it is for us to ensure that we don’t allow it.
Speaking on the next year’s governorship election in Ondo state, the police boss said “We are preparing and we will make sure the environment is peaceful for every political party, either for campaign or election. We monitor the politicians and the political parties and their activities.”
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