By; PATRICK TITUS, Uyo
The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel has donated 15 patrol vehicles, comprising 10 are Sienna buses and 5 brand new Hilux trucks, all fully fitted with communication gadgets to the State command of Nigeria Police Force.
The donations came just as the state government has also built and donated a Special Protection Unit Base located in Onna local government area of the State.
Governor Emmanuel, who announced the donations on Wednesday, said that vehicles were donated to address lack of mobility in the base as activities commence in the facility which he said is the best among others.
His words, “We’ve been buying and will keep buying, but for today I have 15 vehicles on ground: 10 are Sienna buses and 5 brand new Hilux trucks, all fully fitted with communication gadgets to start this base. We don’t want this base to lack mobility.”
“….this fantastic facility; not just best in the south south, but in the country. Designed in line with concept behind how all police formations are designed across the country: with a modern administrative block, a hundred apartments all ensuite, 10 one bedroom flats, the commandant block with service quarters, the 2 ICs house, officers mess for relaxation, good internal roads with solar-powered lights,” Governor Emmanuel added.
While urging the police to make good use of all the items donated, Governor Emmanuel reassured all the security agencies in the state of his administration’s continued collaboration to enable the agencies achieve the primary goal of protecting lives and property in the State.
Commissioning the Dpecial Protection Base, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Usman Alkali Baba lauded the Akwa Ibom state government for various supports to the Command in the state.
Baba assured of the judicious use of the gestures, adding the patrol vehicles and the state-of-the-art facility would further enhance the efforts of the police in combating crime and criminality in the state stressing that, such support and cooperation have been a source of encouragement to the Force.
The Inspector-General of police had earlier at the command headquarters, Ikot Akpanabia, Uyo addressed officers and men of the Police Force, and urged them to redouble their efforts in crime prevention, saying that, the changing nature of criminality has brought about introduction of technology in fighting it.
The IG noted that it was the responsibility of the Force to provide conducive environment for economic and social activities to thrive.
“Crime and criminality is a dynamic thing, it is not something that is static, it moves with time, with modernization and it moves with technology.
“Today, we see how human being is taken away and they are asking you to bring money, that is the new crime called kidnapping, we know of armed robbery and we started hearing of armed banditry.
“So, we must work with time, we must work with modernity and therefore, one of our cardinal principles in this job is to train and retrain ourselves.
“We just started training our 10,000 recruits effective last Monday and we have been able to change the curriculum to reflect modenity”, he said.
According to the IGP added, “the Force, has received over 200 brand of pick-up vehicles from the Police Trust Fund office, we have made air-wing very effective, we proud of putting six helicopters on the air at one time. Our marine section had been reactivated, our technical intelligent unit is working, we have acquired drones, digitalized our crime section, we have involved lot of technology in our work”.
