The Nation Newspaper

Tag: PPRO

  • Akwa Ibom Police Command gets new PPRO

    The Commissioner of Police in Akwa Ibom, Don  Awunah has appointed a new Police Public Relations Officer for the state Police Command.

    He is DSP Chukwu Ikechukwu, who until his appointment was the Divisional Crime Officer ‘A’ Division Wellington Bassey Way, Uyo.

    A statement by Awunah, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Uyo, noted that Ikechukwu takes over from ASP Cordelia Nwawe,

    He said that Nwawe is on transfer to Force Headquarters, Abuja.

    Ikechukwu, who holds a Bachelor of Science Degree Bsc (Hons) in Economics from the University of Uyo, was enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force as a Cadet ASP on Aug. 3, 2009.

    He has held many administrative and operational positions including Divisional Crime Officer Yawuri, Administrative Officer B’ OPS Kebbi State, Divisional Traffic Officer Itu Division and Patrol and Guard C Division Uyo. 

    According to the police boss, the new PPRO to Akwa Ibom police command assumes duty immediately

  • Police confirm attack on Bayelsa Speaker’s house

    Police confirm attack on Bayelsa Speaker’s house

    The police in Bayelsa State, Thursday, confirmed that the house of the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Kombowei Benson, was attacked in his hometown by unknown persons.

    A statement by the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Asinim Butswat, said unknown persons detonated an object suspected to be dynamite in the speaker’s compound.

    He said the explosion resulted to the damage of the doors, windows and glasses in his residence.

    Butswat, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), said no life was lost in the incident.

    He said:  “On the 7/1/2016, at about 0405hrs, unknown persons detonated an object suspected to be dynamite in the compound of Hon Kombowei Benson, at Korokorosei Community. 

    “The impact resulted to damage to the doors, windows and glasses in his residence. Nobody was injured and no life was lost.

    “The scene was visited and a team of Explosive ordnance Disposal unit (EOD) is conducting  post blast Investigations. Efforts have been intensified to arrest the culprits.”

  • Group hails PPRO’s appointment

    The Police Assistance Committee (PAC) has commended the emergence of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Olabisi Kolawole as the first female Police Public Relations Officer PPRO at the national level, describing it as a well deserved appointment.

    In a statement issued in Lagos and signed by its Director General, Dr. Martins John Oni, the PAC noted that the appointment of the new PPRO was a manifestation of her enviable track record acquired over the years through her diligent services in the Nigeria Police Force which had seen her occupying very sensitive positions creditably.

    The organization enjoined ACP Kolawole to approach her new job with all sense of decorum and high level of professionalism so as to justify the confidence reposed in her by the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase.

    While appealing to the new PPRO to be a team player by carrying along all critical stakeholders in the course of her duties, the PAC pledged its readiness to keep working closely with her as it has been doing with all her predecessors over two decades ago, asking her to give an open door to all PAC coordinators and exco – members nationwide.

  • Ogun police arrest three robbery suspects, recover cash

    Ogun police arrest three robbery suspects, recover cash

    THE Anti-robbery Unit of the Ajuwon Division, Ogun State Police Command has arrested three robbery suspects after robbing a man in the area.

    Operatives from the unit were on patrol when they received a call that the suspects – Victor Akindele(24), Muritalah Ahmed (27) of Alagbole Ojodu Area and Afolabi Olatunji (32) of Alagbole Ojodu Area – had robbed someone at Olumoro Street,  Olambe.

    The suspects reportedly carted away some amount of money and valuables from the victim.

    The Nation gathered that the team chased the suspects, who came on a motorcycle and arrested the three suspects.

    The sum of N50,495:00 snatched from the victim, some guns and mobile phones were recovered.

    The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Olumuyiwa Adejobi, who confirmed the arrest, said: “The suspects fired some shots at the victim, which left some injuries on him before they escaped from the scene. But he had been taken to the hospital by the Divisional Police Officer in Ajuwon Division for medical attention and he is responding to treatment.”

    Adejobi, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), said the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ikemefuna Okoye, praised those who made the distress call for exercising their civic responsibility to ensure adequate security of lives and property.

  • Oyo: What manner of politics?

    SIR: Few weeks ago, the city of Ibadan and indeed the world, quaked at the revelation that a den of kidnappers had been discovered in the Soka area of the city. The world was terrified and bothered that, right in its very before, some traffickers and merchants were trading in the entrails and other body parts of its people.

    While the state government, which rose to the occasion immediately, intensified efforts to arrest the situation, in conjunction with the state police command, politics, that ubiquitous vocation that is the preoccupation of the high and mighty, crept into the tragic discovery. First was a young lady who was said to have been hit by a vehicle at the Mobil area of the state capital, which dragged her remains down to the Adeoyo area of the city. Promptly, not one to be caught napping, Oyo politicians leapt on the scene and began to spin a yarn: she was a victim of ritual murder, a story primed to up sow the seed of fear in a state where the most essential win for the government in power is the peace and tranquility it brought after eight years of brigandage and thuggery.

    Then what was alien to Ibadan became the norm: mad men became recipients of people’s anger. One was apprehended at the Ring Road area, reportedly with human tongues. Before the drop of a hat, a cabal of political merchants went to town to spin the ridiculous: since the apprehended mad man was apprehended close to Oluyole, the home of the governor, he must be working for him! The mad man was promptly lynched by a wrathful mob. Two others were lynched within a week. I saw one beside Genesis area being rescued by police, his face bloodied. The police PPRO confirmed this animal sausage story.

    This revelation by the police confirms one thing: that animal sausage was planted by a God-knows-who on the mad men, with an intention that is clear: play politics, tar-brush the government in power, reverse the peace of Oyo State and make it ungovernable. Not long after, some politicians began an Albert Camus absurdity: government and not kidnappers, was responsible for Soka.

    Some years ago, the Bayo Akala government was also tar-brushed by ostensibly this same set of politicians as giving pupils poisoned Indomie. The questions to ask are, why would politicians be this desperate for power? Why package animal sausage to look like human tongues? What is their intention? Is the blood of these madmen lynched by the provoked mob not crying for vengeance? Will police reveal the masterminds of this callous politicking? Are Oyo people so unsophisticated as to be arrested by these politicians’ kind of politics? May God help the people of Oyo in the hands of these evil politicians.

    • Bilikisu Mumuni,

    Opo Yeosa, Ibadan.

  • Police arrest robbery kingpin in Gombe

    GOMBE State Police Command says it has arrested an armed robbery kingpin who specializes in snatching cars at gunpoint.

    Spokesman for the Command, DSP Fwaje Atajiri said the suspect had been elusive in five neighbouring states before he was caught in Gombe.

    He said that three vehicles (two Golf III cars and a Honda Civic saloon) were recovered from the suspect.

    The PPRO also said an imposter, Ishaya Yila who has been parading himself as a policeman, harassing innocent citizens and policemen alike has also been arrested in the state.

    He said his arrest came as a result of him going to one of their stations to harass and intimidate policemen over securing the release of a suspect connected with miscreants who harass young ladies and dispossess them of their belongings.

    “Because of his attitude, the junior police officers there believe that a senior police officer couldn’t have gone out of his ways to insult a junior one, therefore, they demanded to know him more. And through the interrogation, it was discovered that he was not a policeman.

     

  • JTF arrests Amaechi’s opponents with arms,ammunition, hands them over to police

    JTF arrests Amaechi’s opponents with arms,ammunition, hands them over to police

    The Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta, codenamed Operation Pulo (Oil) Shield, has arrested six persons with arms and ammunition in Rivers State, with sources indicating that the suspects are political opponents of Governor Rotimi Amaechi, the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).

    The Spokesman of the JTF, Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, last night, confirmed the arrest, but insisted that the suspects were picked for illegal possession of firearms and not for political reason.

    Nwachukwu said: “As at 3rd January six suspects with arms were arrested during a routine patrol at Ogu community in Ogu/Bolo LGA (of Rivers State). Items recovered were: 7 x AK-47, 164 rounds of ammunition and six locally made canon launchers.

    “Suspects were handed over to the Nigeria Police yesterday (Friday). They were arrested for illegal possession of firearms and not for any reason of political or social affiliation as being wrongly insinuated.”

    The Rivers Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ahmad Muhammad, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), when contacted at 8:12 pm yesterday, said of the suspects’ handover to the police by the JTF: “I have not been briefed of such handover, for now.”

    A source in Port Harcourt stated that the suspects were associates of Senator George Sekibo, who represents Rivers East Senatorial District and the self-acclaimed Speaker of the Rivers House of Assembly, Evans Bipi, the representative of Ogu/Bolo constituency, who are allies of the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience.

    The source said: “On January 3rd, members of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) arrested six youths around Ekporo Road, on their way to Ogu in Ogu/Bolo LGA of Rivers State. They were in an off white Land Rover jeep, with registration number JJ 441 BZ. The youths were arrested based on their suspicious movement.

    “Those arrested gave their names as Sunday Elisha, Uche Jenikachi, Ibinabo Lawson, Okechukwu Okoro, Jerry Tonye and Daniel Ibito-Anga, who parades himself and his known in Ogu/Bolo as Security Adviser/Personal Assiatant to both Senator George Sekibo and Evans Bipi.

    “Both Senator Sekibo and Evans Bipi are from Ogu and are known and have confessed publicly to be extremely close associates of the Nigerian First Lady, Patience Jonathan, who hails from nearby Okrika and they all speak the same native Okrika dialect.

    “As a matter of fact, Evans Bipi was a domestic aide of Mrs. Jonathan before he was elected into the Rivers State House of Assembly in 2011. Senator Sekibo, who nurses a governorship ambition in 2015, is hoping to ride into Rivers State Government House on the back of Mrs. Jonathan.

     

    All of them are also known publicly to be fighting the Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.”

    While also corroborating that arms and ammunition recovery from the suspects by the JTF, the sources said: “Found in the possession of the boys and recovered from them were 7 AK-47 assorted riffles, 146 rounds of 7.62 mm special life ammunition and 10 life magazines, among others.

    “After their arrest, they were taken by the JTF team to Bori Camp, the military base in Port Harcourt. The boys have been handed over to the police in Rivers State. The police in the state are headed by the Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, who is said to have been brought to head the State Police Command by Mrs. Jonathan. Mbu has been accused of taking directives from Mrs. Jonathan and her associates.

    “Only recently, the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, raised the alarm that arms, ammunition and weapons are being brought into the state (Rivers) by those opposed to his administration, ahead of the next general elections.”

    It will be recalled that Amaechi, President Jonathan, Dame Patience, and most leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers state had been at loggerheads over the scheming for 2015 and worsened with the NGF chairman’s defection to the main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

  • Rivers: Lloyd drags Police, Mbu to Rights Commission

    Rivers: Lloyd drags Police, Mbu to Rights Commission

    •Wants to be released forthwith

    The detained Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Mr. Chidi Lloyd, has petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), protesting his arrest for alleged murder by the police.

    He is accusing the State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu; the state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ahmad Muhammad, DSP; and the Police Command of unlawful arrest, detention, intimidation, arbitrary and excessive use of police powers.

    He asks to be released forthwith.

    Lloyd whose petition was written by his lawyer, Ken Atsuwete, was arrested by the police on Thursday for what they called double murder.

    They accused him of running his car over Police Sergeant Urang Obediah and one Kingsley Ejeuo in Port Harcourt.

    Lloyd in his petition said he was only a passenger in the car which was involved in an accident “along the Emuoha Council Secretariat axis of the East-West Road, occasioned by an illegal road block or check point mounted by the some policemen from the Rivers State Police Command.”

    He said one of the policemen, Sergeant Urang Obediah, died shortly thereafter, with one Kingsley Ejeuo as a result of the impact from the collusion.

    His lawyer said: “The driver (now detained) of the said vehicle promptly handed himself over to the police, while Hon. Lloyd proceeded to the hospital somewhere in Port Harcourt for treatment between the 31st of December 2013 and 1st of January 2014, when he was discharged and he proceeded to his house in Port Harcourt, for continued treatment under strict medical instructions from his doctor.

    “Hon. Chidi Lloyd was in his house until the 2nd day of January, when he described the whereabouts of his residence to the officers and men of the Rivers State Police Command, who had made enquiries through telephone as to the location of our client. Lloyd was at home with his wife, relatives and one of his lawyers, Emenike Ebete, when senior officers from the said police command came in to effect an arrest, without stating the reason for the arrest.

    “As a law abiding Nigerian, our client allowed himself to be whisked away in an unmarked police vehicle, without the least explanation as to why his house was invaded by a huge number of policemen, who came armed to the teeth, in a commando and extremely intimidating style.

    “The pandemonium caused by such harassing and intimidating attack on his peaceful home has now left a stigma and palpable fear in his wife, children and entire household. Hon. Lloyd has been in detention at command since then, without being arraigned or released by the said police command.”

    Lloyd said his continued detention is a violation of his “freedom of movement, right to private and family life and all other attendant inalienable rights of the said client, as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights” by the police “under the unlawful and arbitrary orders of Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu, who is now a law unto himself in Rivers State.”

    He accused the police of malicious distortion of the circumstances surrounding Lloyd’s arrest and of continued harassment “by manufacturing defaming facts against Hon. Lloyd, who was clearly painted as a convicted man on the run, who was apprehended by the police, while he was attempting an escape.”

    He added:”This is an act of criminal defamation of character, deliberately employed by the Rivers State Police Command, under the watch of Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu. The aim is to degrade and treat Hon Chidi Lloyd in a way that is not human and humane, in clear contrast to our client’s constitutional right not to be treated in a degrading and inhuman manner.”

    “Witnesses like the man who drove the car in question have given useful statements to the same command, which clearly indicated Hon. Lloyd was not the one who drove the car. In the event that this driver, who has confessed that he drove the car when the accident occurred, is charged, common knowledge of the law is a pointer that he could only be charged for reckless driving and manslaughter and not murder or double murder as maliciously published against Hon. Lloyd by the Rivers State Police Command and its commissioner, who have unlawfully held him under such misguided and unconscionable impression, without the least effort or likelihood that he will be released any time soon.”

    He asked to be released on bail forthwith to enable him return home “for medication, while your commission wades into the matter now, with a view to arriving at a decision that perfects the enforcement of our client’s inalienable rights as safeguarded and guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Laws of the Federation 2004 and the indeed the Chapter IV of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.”

    The Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, on Friday in Port Harcourt, declared that the Rivers police command lied on Thursday’s arrest of Lloyd, while the House’s leader also described Mbu as a liar, in his desperation to destroy his political career, through the murder allegation.

  • Two killed in Kebbi police/youth clash

    Two killed in Kebbi police/youth clash

    A violent clash between the police and some youths in Warra, Ngaski Local Government Area of Kebbi State has claimed two lives, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

    Several others were injured.

    The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state , Deputy Superintendent Mohammed Mainagge said in Birnin Kebbi that some youths had attempted to burn down the divisional police station on Wednesday.

    The police resisted the action of the youths, he said.

    Mainagge, however, said that normalcy has since been restored to the area, while investigation into the causes of the clash has commenced.

    Alhaji Yusuf Umar, the Chief Orientation and Mobilisation Officer of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Ngaski Local Government Area, said that the clash was triggered by a dispute between a young man and a policeman.

    He said that his (Umar’s) efforts to resolve the dispute proved abortive.

    Umar said that attempt by the policeman to arrest the man was resisted by the youths, who accused the police of victimisation.

    He said that the young man took the matter to court, while the magistrate referred the matter to the police for investigation.

    Umar said that the police investigation found that man had a case to answer for assaulting a policeman in uniform and the court ordered that he should be remanded in prison.

    He said that when the court refused to grant bail to the accused, some irate youths, who protested against the court’s verdict, became unruly and violent in their agitation for the suspect’s bail.

    Umar said that in the ensuing fracas, the police attempted to restore calm and fired some shots which led to the death of two persons.

  • Family of 7 perish in road accident in Katsina

    A ghastly motor accident has killed a family of seven on the Katsina-Kano road in Rimi Local Government Area of Katsina state.

    The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for the Police Command in the state, Aminu Sadiq, told journalists that the accident happened on Saturday at about 8 p.m at Lambar-Rimi town.

    from Kano had a head-on collision.

    He added that five persons died on the spot, while two infants later died and four others sustained various degrees of injuries.

    “They (those who sustained injuries) were rushed to the Katsina General Hospital for medical treatment,’’ the PPRO said.

    Sadiq who said the police were investigating the cause of the accident advised motorists to always obey traffic rules and regulations to reduce road accidents.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered that the dead were said to be members of the family of one Alhaji Abashe Sarkin-kasuwa, of Kankia Local Government Area of the state.

    They have been buried according to Islamic injunction in Kankia, their home town.