The Commissioner of Police in Oyo State, Mr Abiodun Odude, assumed duty on 1 March, 2017, after the retirement of his predecessor. In this interview by the Head, Crime Desk, OLUWATOYIN MALIK and ADEWALE OSHODI, Odude speaks on his experience, the issue of corruption among police officers, as well as the security challenges in the state. Excerpts:
Can you tell us of your experience in the Nigeria Police?
I have about 31 years experience in the force, and I have worked in virtually all departments in the force, from operations to administration and investigation. I have worked extensively in these major departments. I have also worked outside the force; I have worked in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Do you not see it as duplication of jobs if officers and men deployed to the EFCC are usually from the Nigeria Police Force?
The police force is a very big organisation. I mentioned the major departments in the force earlier. Basically, our job is divided into operations, traffic, administration and investigation. When you talk of investigation, it is also broken down into different sections such as the anti-fraud, SFU, narcotics unit, among others.
However, what the government has done over the years is to identify a prevalent crime, get the police and give them the incentive and equipment they need to work and set up a new organisation that will tackle that crime.
For example, the Department of State Service (DSS) was taken out of the intelligence unit of the police. The same thing applies to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). When the NDLEA started, the government picked policemen who are in the narcotics unit, and picked a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mr Fidelis Oyakhilome, to set up the NDLEA. It had foreign support and other things that were not readily available to the police, and that organisation is doing wonderfully well today, providing employment for the people. It has grown tremendously.
The same thing can be said of the EFCC. I was one of the police officers who started the EFCC with absolutely nothing. And I am happy where the organization, headed by a serving policeman, is today.
Having assumed duty as the Commissioner of Police in Oyo State on March 1, what are the crime peculiarities of the state that you have noted?
One can’t get the data to work within three weeks. However, I must say that there is no peculiarity in terms of crime in Oyo State; crimes happen everywhere. But I thank God that we are dealing with the crimes. We are on top of the situation.
What is your command, in synergy with the NDLEA, doing about the increasing hemp smoking in the state?
Raiding hemp joints is not the only thing that will bring down the rate of crime. We have different tactical measures we use in detecting and combating crimes, which I don’t want to disclose here. I agree with you that people do engage in hemp smoking but it is not exactly in the purview of the police force because we have the NDLEA which deals directly with them.
But the police force is all-embracing. Whether it is the NDLEA, EFCC, Immigration, Customs, Road Safety, the police force still has a role to play. We are not running away from our responsibilities. We have been raiding hemp joints consistently since I came and we have been achieving results.
Hemp smoking doesn’t carry weighty sentence but we can be lucky when we go to a suspect’s house and find implements used in committing bigger crimes, which can then bring heavier sentences on them. There is a group calling itself the One Million Boys. Since I came, we have charged over 120 of the group’s members to court. We do intelligence policing; we identify their houses and arrest them.
We learnt that most of the arrested suspects pay their way out of police stations. How true is this?
The truth is that people have misconceptions about the police force. Some think if they commit a crime and they are arrested, once they pay a certain amount, they will be released. That is absolutely not true.
People who are close to the police know that things do not operate like that. The idea that money can be used to suppress a case is just a fallacy.
Again, we have set up an anti-corruption unit and they are arresting policemen who are corrupt. I can tell you that there is no security organisation in Nigeria that punishes corruption like the Nigeria Police.
Once anyone in the police force is caught in connection with corruption, we give such a person the adequate punishment. Ninety-nine per cent of the cases are punished by dismissal. Once you are found corrupt, it is an indication that you cannot work in the system anymore.
Despite the fact that your men have this knowledge, there are still cases of extortion of vehicle owners on the roads by policemen. What do you have to say about this?
In any organisation, there are always the bad eggs. Even Jesus Christ had just 12 disciples and one of them betrayed him. The Nigeria Police has about 300,000 men, so there is no way we won’t find some bad eggs among them.
There will always be dissidents but the management of the police force is doing its best to fish them out and punish them adequately. The organisation does not waste time in dealing with those who are corrupt.
The police always say bail is free but whenever someone is arrested for a bailable offence, such a person will not leave the police station without ‘dropping something’. What do you make of this?
If there is a policeman who has taken money for bail, just inform the appropriate quarters and such a policeman will be punished. I want to emphasise that bail is absolutely free. Someone should give us an example of a situation where someone was forced to pay for bail and after reporting such a policeman, he was not punished.
What are the security challenges you have noticed since you assumed duty and how do you intend to tackle them?
The country is in a recession, and those things we used to enjoy as a police force are no longer immediately available. We don’t have enough vehicles. We need a lot of technical equipment to work with and they are not readily available. We also don’t have enough manpower. The United Nations’ approved ratio is a policeman to 400 people but this is not the case in Nigeria. We are nowhere near that standard.
But the Federal Government is rectifying the situation gradually. The government is trying but the provision is not enough. State governments are assisting but security is an expensive venture. However, the fact that we are wearing uniform does not mean that policing should be completely left to us. That is why we seek the support of communities through corporate social responsibility and many of them respond to us. In any case, we are coping with the little we have.
The capital city, Ibadan, and other parts of the state have been witnessing increase in kidnapping and other crimes. Having identified one of the challenges as lack of patrol vehicles, how do you intend to curb crime effectively?
Let me tell you one thing: anywhere Nigerian policemen go on foreign mission, they come out as the best, because everything is provided for them. Policemen in Nigeria are so rugged that without anything, we put ourselves to work beyond limit.
Recently, the Inspector General of Police directed that senior officers be medically tested. This is because we lose officers as a result of stress. We work 24 hours. In Oyo State, I don’t sleep, including the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of operations and other senior officers. We recently released our mobile phone lines to the public, and people have been calling. They call anytime of the day, including midnight, and we have no choice but to answer the calls and deal with the situation. If a crime is being committed close to where you are, you call any of the numbers and we will answer you. We don’t sleep so that members of the public can sleep very well.
On the issue of herdsmen and farmers, past police commissioners tried to bring the two sides together but the moves did not totally work out. What strategy are you adopting to ensure peace between these two groups?
Since I came, we have only had one situation in Igbeti and we are on top of the situation. What happened in that town is that one farmer poisoned his crops and about two of the sheep that ate of the crops died. The sheep owner was so furious he killed the owner of the farm.
I went there. We deployed men there and the situation has been brought under control. We met the leaders of both groups there. I told them there should not be a recurrence. We have information on the man who murdered the farmer. We will soon arrest him. However, we can’t say that the herdsmen problem is peculiar to Oyo State. The problem exists in other parts of the country but we are on top of the situation.
How does the force reward hard work among its officers and men?
There is a reward system in the force. If a policeman works for three days without going home or he arrests an armed robber, there is nothing gallantry about that. That is the training; that is what he is employed to do.
However, a lot of our men are given special promotions after they have done something extraordinary. This year alone, about 50 policemen have been given special promotions by the Inspector General of Police for hard work. There is also the special commendation which makes a policeman get promoted faster than his colleagues.
Once a policeman has been commended, chances are, that policeman would be promoted during the next exercise. The IG is focused on rewarding hard work. He places a premium on it.
What is your view of community policing?
Community policing is the best way of policing. Policing is about the community. What we want is maintenance of law and order, to combat crime. When we work in unison, then we will achieve more and have safer communities.
The police cannot work without the community. In countries like England, one will find old women seated by the window side, and when something happens, they pick the phone and call the police. That is community policing. Their way of policing is also different. You find a policeman who gets promoted regularly but remains on his beat for 30 years, so he knows that beat like the back of his hand. We have a peculiar situation in Nigeria whereby 300,000 policemen are in charge of a population over 150 million.
Quote: The police cannot work without the community. In countries like England, one will find old women seated by the window side, and when something happens, they pick the phone and call the police. That is community policing.