5th August, 2014
The Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr Suleiman Abba, on Monday met with senior police officers in Abuja to evolve strategies on how to tackle security challenges in the country.
The Commissioners of Police in charge of the 36 states and the FCT attended the meeting.
Addressing newsmen before the meeting went into closed door session, Abba vowed that the force would not shy away from the challenges.
“This meeting is going to be an eye-ball-to-eye-ball, heart-to-heart discussion.
“We will not discuss anything other than the problems before us, we cannot pretend, we cannot look aside, there are problems, problems of insecurity.
“Problem of safety of the people in this country, particularly in some parts of the country,’’ he said.
Abba said those problems, including the continuous threats to security and forms of violent crimes, required urgent attention.
The acting inspector-general said one of the greatest weapons needed to address the problems, was a change in attitude by officers and men of the force.
Responding to questions from newsmen, Abba said that the force had massively deployed personnel to Osun to ensure that the Saturday governorship election was conducted peacefully.
He said that the massive deployment was informed by allegations that thugs were being recruited and armed to foment trouble during the election.
“It is an open secret that there were recruitment of thugs, there were people being armed, anyway these are allegations.
“I assure you, we will deploy enough personnel, it is better they are even more than what is required than for them to be fewer.
“We will make presence felt enough so that the voter feel safe to go and perform their responsibility.
“We will be there to make sure that the integrity of the whole exercise is maintained,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), however, reports that no Deputy Inspector-General of Police attended the meeting, an indication that the seven DIGs had retired with the former IG-P, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar.