The Police high command in Cross River State says it will deal decisively with any one or group of persons caught accosting and burning suspected criminals instead of handing over such suspects to the Police for prosecution.
Hafiz Mohammed Inuwa, the CRS Commissioner of Police, who exclusively disclosed this information to www.calitown.com, explained that it was completely against the law for anybody to accost such suspects and lynch them. While expressing displeasure at the recent lynching of suspected criminals in certain parts of Calabar metropolis, he opined that no one can be convicted for any offence outside a competent court of law and warned residents that where such incidents occur again, his men have express directives to arrest and prosecute all those identified as having carried out such an act.
Confronted with the facts that some of his officers and men were colluding with criminals, even exposing the identity of informants to suspects, Inuwa regretted the unfortunate situation, stating that he will work to identify and prosecute such bad eggs in the interest of the public. He however appealed that members of the public can also help the Police identify such officers and men by sharing information with him and other very senior officers.
While he complained about a shortage of operational vehicles to help his men patrol the state effectively, he clearly was unable to give account of the purported more than two hundred vehicles that the Cross River State Government said it had in recent times handed over to the police. “I did not see that in the notes handed over to me by my predecessor”, he concluded.
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