The Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Tunji Disu, has revealed how a retired soldier once asked the police to kill his own son who was arrested for cultism.
Disu made the disclosure in a post on his official X account on Monday.
In the piece titled, ‘The First Lawmakers: My Reflection on Home, Discipline, and Duty,’ he emphasised that law and order must begin at home.
“A retired soldier once came into my office in Ago Iwoye, demanding we kill his son, a university student arrested for cultism. His rage was volcanic. Yet, the very next day, that same man returned, food in hand, asking after his son’s well-being. When I joked, ‘So you don’t want us to kill him again?’ his eyes betrayed a truth every parent knows: anger is often the flipside of helpless love,” he wrote.
Disu said he met the soldier’s son years later in Shagamu, Ogun State, when he had completed his education and gotten married.
The police boss also described how parents often come to police stations seeking help to discipline their children, sometimes asking officers to torture or detain them.
“As a police officer, I’ve witnessed this truth play out in heartbreaking ways—parents arrive at stations, not with pleas for justice, but with demands for us to parent for them. ‘I want you to detain my child; I want you to discipline him.’ ‘Torture him,’ as though pain alone could rewrite a life long gone astray.”
He shared another experience of a father who asked the police to keep his drug-addicted son in custody for weeks.
“Keep him here,” he insisted. We refused—not out of indifference, but because cells are not rehabilitation centres. If anything were to happen to the boy, or if he escaped, who would the father blame? The police. Yet discipline cannot be outsourced. It must be nurtured, patiently and persistently, at home.”
He noted that while earlier generations experienced discipline through corporal punishment, what is lacking today is not discipline but parental presence.
“The problem today isn’t a lack of discipline; it’s a lack of presence. Parents once corrected their children directly, even if harshly. Some have handed that duty to strangers—teachers, police, and social workers. But no institution can replace a parent’s guidance.”
He warned that the role of the police is not to raise children or instil values.
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“To be clear: I am not discouraging parents from reporting wayward children. If your son steals or your daughter vanishes, come to us. We will help. But do not confuse reporting with surrendering. When you hand us your child and say, ‘Fix them,’ you misunderstand our role. We enforce laws; we cannot replace love. We investigate crimes; we cannot teach values.”
Disu said the retired soldier’s son changed not because he was jailed, but because his father eventually chose to support him instead of abandoning him.
He called on parents to take responsibility for raising their children properly, stressing that police cells cannot replace homes.
He further urged parents to be more present in their children’s lives and not hand over their parental duties to others.
“The police cannot replace your voice. We cannot instil the values you withhold. Our cells are not classrooms; handcuffs are not teaching tools. When you outsource parenting to the state, you gamble with life—and with the peace of communities.”
“My generation’s parents were far from perfect, but they owned their role as first teachers. They scolded, they punished, and they stayed. I urge present parents to do the same—not with the harshness of the past, but with the wisdom of your own heart. Meet your children where they are. Listen. Correct and love.”
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