Henceforth, anyone who pays for bail and the receiving police officer will face prosecution, the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, Abiodun Alabi, has warned.
Alabi gave the warning in a welcome address delivered at the 41st Graduation Ceremony of the Police Human Rights Officers, organised by the Lagos State Police Command, in collaboration with Crime Victims Foundation (CRIVIFON). It held at the Police Officers Mess, Sobo Arobiodu Street, GRA, Ikeja.
He stressed that bail was free and that the command would no longer turn a blind eye to such misconduct in the future.
On the training, Alabi said any deficiency in the acquisition of knowledge would impact negatively on the performance of the force.
“This is the reason why command attached much importance to the training and retraining of our men and officers particularly in order to broaden their knowledge on rule of law and human rights”, he said.
The chairman, House Committee on Police Reform and Accountability in the Federal House of Representatives, Prince Bayo Balogun, said his committee would ensure that men and officers of the Police gave a human face to the force.
Balogun said: “It is not enough to have the laws in the book. What is important is to remind our police officers that they are in the Force to protect and give service to the people.”
He charged members of the Force to always strike a balance between abusing the law and the rights of the ordinary people, adding, “don’t allow your uniform to intoxicate you so that you don’t cross the limit if the law.”
Executive Director of CRIVIFON, Mrs. Gloria Egbuji said human rights was at the core of community policing pointing out that without the police respecting the rights of the people, it would be difficult to attain the objectives of the exercise.
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She said with the approval of Inspector-General of the Police, the foundation had trained over 20,000 police men and women from the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCPs) to constable.
Mrs. Egbuji said the objective of the training “is to change the narrative and have friendly police officers who respect peoples human rights, improve the image of the police in order for the public to be closer to them and share intelligence and make their work easier.”
Mrs. Egbuji, whose foundation was at the vanguard of the campaign that led to the Compulsory Treatment and Care of Gunshot Victims Act 2017, urged hospitals to stop rejecting victims.
“It is criminal for hospitals to reject victims. Immediately you finish treatment of victims, report to the nearest police station. That is the position of the law as at today”, she advised.
A lawyer and rights activist, Olasupo Ojo, urged the Police to summon leaders of the various political parties to discuss and agree on modalities for campaign in order to avoid clashes by supporters.
Ojo who spoke on the topic, “Election Security and Code of Conduct for NPF at Elections” at the graduation ceremony enjoined men and officers to be professional and must not breach any law while carrying out their duties during the process leading to the conduct of the coming elections across the country.
He emphasised: “The police must neutral, consistent in the application of the law, transparent in everything, be fair to all the political parties and they must cooperate with everybody on the electoral process.”
Ojo urged the Police to avoid use of force during the process stressing, “avoid acts that can cause violence. Rather, persuasion can do a lot of things and resolve a lot of issue.”