By Ikeugonna Eleke
Following the high spate of insecurity that has bedevilled Anambra State lately, a human rights activist based in the state, Comrade Osita Obi, has called on the Inspector General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, to immediately redeploy the State Commissioner of Police, CP Nnaghe Obono Itam.
The activist said this had become very necessary as the CP had not shown capacity in combating the menace of insecurity in the state.
There have been several spates of killings in Anambra recently, including the killing of about 16 people in Nibo during its new yam festival, just close to the police headquarters and the Governor’s Lodge; another nine in Awka, a day after, and several other incidences, including kidnapping.
On Monday too, unknown gunmen said to be enforcing the proscribed sit-at-home order, killed about five persons, injuring others.
Reacting to this, Obi said there was no way to distance the police from what was going on, and that if they were not capable of handling the issues, then it pointed to a lack of ideas by the man at the helm.
He said: ‘The truth of the matter is that the Anambra State Police Command under CP Itam is incompetent and clueless, and I am asking the IGP to redeploy him from Anambra State immediately.
‘He shouldn’t wait until all of us die. You get to a bank and you see policemen carrying gun standing in front of the bank and making themselves available for targeting. Same thing happens at checkpoints where they expose themselves while extorting motorists.
‘When the hoodlums come, they get them easily because they are not focused on the job they were asked to do.
‘Today, the major work of the police in the state is to settle land disputes. What is the correlation between the job of the police which is security of lives and land disputes,’ he queried.
He lamented that despite all the attacks in the state, none had been conclusively unraveled or culprits arrested and brought to book.
He however contended that those insisting that police had not been supported with equipment by the state government should go and ask the immediate past CP, Mr Aderemi Adeoye, which support he used to fight criminals to a standstill just months back, before his eventual retirement.