Inspector General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris, has lauded police services in West Africa over the arrest of Chukwujeme Onwamadike, the suspected kidnapper a.k.a Evans – Idris has disclosed that Evans was arrested by the police based on the accurate information they got from both Nigeria and beyond
He further said that the Nigeria Police Force had 300,000 personnel in 127 area commands and 5303 divisions
The
Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has attributed the arrest
of Chukwujeme Onwamadike, the suspected kidnapper popularly known as
Evans, to information sharing and intelligence cooperation among police
services in West Africa.
“Information
sharing is crucial to tackling the menace of trans-border crimes in
West Africa; it is through such exchange that we were able to nab a
Ghanaian/Nigerian kidnapper two weeks ago, after evading arrest for many
years,” Idris said on Wednesday, June 21.
Idris
spoke in Accra, Ghana in a paper titled: ”The role of Nigeria Police in
national security and its contributions in West Africa”, delivered at
an ongoing West Africa international security conference. The paper was
sent, via email, to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia.
“For
several years, Evans terrorized Nigerians and nationals of many
countries across West Africa. “Efforts to apprehend him did not yield
the desired results until we spread our search net wider,” he said.
The
police chief, who solicited closer ties among security agencies in the
sub-region, emphasized the need to improve the method of monitoring and
surveillance, particularly among border and coastal police units. Idris
called for improved communication capabilities among intelligence
gathering outfits in West Africa, and called for mutual support to plug
loopholes usually exploited by criminals.
He
said that the Nigeria Police Force had 300,000 personnel in 127 area
commands and 5303 divisions, adding that the force had consistently
contributed to stability and peace in ECOWAS nations and under UN
mandates.
“The
Nigeria Police Force trained 250 Liberian Police personnel in 2005 and
has consistently offered training slots to police officers from Gambia
and Sierra Leone at the Police Staff College, Jos and the Police
Academy, Wudil.“We also trained 100 police officers from the Republic of
Niger on mobile police combat in 1998.
He
said: “At the end of the training, Nigeria donated trucks, riot
equipment and tear smoke to the Nigerien government. ”Idris said that
the Nigeria Police Force also helped to stabilise Guinea Bissau in 2012,
when the military intervened in its leadership and truncated democracy.
“Our
police personnel remained there until democracy was restored in 2014.”
The IGP expressed Nigeria’s readiness to consistently cooperate with
police formations in other countries to track down criminals, pointing
out that such mutual cooperation had become even more necessary as
technology had reduced the world to a small village.
Both
men had kidnapped a priest in the state, before they were apprehended
by the police. The suspects are: 24-year-old Chinedu Odoemena,
20-year-old Ogadinma Ajonuma and 48-year-old Uzoma Mejuru who are all
from Umuokpu Agbajah in Nwangele local government area of Imo state.
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