Crime situation in Lagos, Ogun has changed drastically – AIG BALA HASSAN

Bala Hassan, the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, AIG in-charge of Lagos and Ogun States, is in charge of an environment plagued by increasing crime rate.  He agrees that the challenges are enormous but, nevertheless, would be treated with the urgency it deserves, assuring that normalcy will soon return but with a caveat to his men, “it is either you ship in and help salvage the situation or quietly ship out of the force.” Excerpts:

By Emma Nnadozie, Crime Editor

ASSESSMENT of crime situation in Zone III was once in Lagos, in Apapa as Area Commander. The crime situation has changed, drastically. However, there are many things to be done, because during my time in Lagos, there was a lot of crime especially car snatching which has reduced drastically.

Our greatest headache is these area boys because of the traffic hold-up. We are working on them. These area boys capitalize on the heavy traffic in Lagos to unleash terror while stealing watches, necklaces and phones from innocent members of the public.

I have told them to decongest the highways so that there will not be hold-up.  If there is no hold-up, they will not come and steal. But where, for any reason, there is hold-up, we will call policemen to monitor wherever we have gridlock so that those people can be arrested. We also have our men on mufti who will deal with them decisively.

Answering of telephone

From what we have done so far and what we are putting in place, things would get better.

Distress call pamphlets, DCP

Recently, there was a robbery incident in Festac but we are on top of the situation. I want to assure the good people of Lagos State that we will get the people arrested. That is the only way we can ensure that people are deterred from committing crime.

I have told Divisional Police Officers and Area Commanders what Lagos stands for. Anyone who is not ready to answer his telephone is not fit to work in Lagos. We are going to make pamphlets. which we call distress call pamphlets.

In these pamphlets, we’ll have the numbers of all the DPOs, Area Commanders, CP and AIG. Any person who is in distress can open the pamphlet and call the DPO and he is bound to send his patrol vehicle to come and assist you. We want to make it such that only five minutes after your call, there must be a response. So, the idea of robbers operating for one hour thirty minutes will not arise. He must be there and send his motor vehicles there and deal with the situation decisively.

Know the number of your DPO

I told people in some forum that every person in a state must know the number of their DPO. It is not enough to know the numbers of the IG or any other big person. DPO is the closest person to you because I remember when I was a young officer, there was a robbery in Ikoyi and the person only knew people in Abuja. So, he called Abuja. Abuja people called the IG, IG called the AIG, the AIG called the CP, CP called the Area Commander and before the Area Commander could call the DPO of Ikoyi, the robbers had escaped. If that big man had called the DPO immediately, the robbers would have been arrested by the patrol team. I always say, know the DPO’s number. Call him, then thereafter, call the AIG so that the time for answering distress calls would be reduced and any person who has committed an offence has less time to escape.

Police is Your Friend Forum

For people who are making comparisons here and there about policemen, we are creating a session. We call it the Police is Your Friend Forum, under the PRO.

Police is Your  Friend Forum

We are giving them two or three motorcycles. So,  if you are around Idumota and the police stops you for no just cause, you can call that platform, they will send you a patrol vehicle. If there is hold-up, dispatch riders would be sent to go there and check if our people are wrong or you are wrong. That will come to life before Christmas. These are some of the strategies we want to put in place.

IGP’s Safer Highways

Of course, there is the Safer Highways as created by the Inspector-General of Police. These Safer Highways officers and men are supposed to remain on the highway so that people can see them. If you are travelling from here to Akure or Sokoto, you’ll be seeing them at regular intervals. We have what the IG calls visibility policing so that would make sure that police are seen visibly and crime is reduced.

We are working on this.  The IG has approved some money to be used to buy daily ration and fuel for them. If they are given allowance, they’ll be able to buy fuel and food, so the idea of blocking the road and extorting money from motorists will not arise.  The IGP has good intentions to see that the men who are on the road are taken good care of.

On kidnapping and pipeline vandalism

Any person who thinks he can commit offence and get away with it is making a mistake. We are putting all our machinery in order to see that those people who perpetrated that act recently will be brought to book. We know that the robbers now escape through waterways. We have started covering them so that it will not occur again. But importantly, any one who commits crime will have his date soon. We will come to arrest you.  People commit crime because there is no certainty of arrest, no certainty of prosecution. But we will arrest you and when we arrest you, there will be prosecution and you will have your date in court. When this is done, people don’t commit crime because they know that they will be arrested and prosecuted and no one is going to let them off the hook.

Constructive criticism

So, this is what we are doing to make sure that Lagos and Ogun states are safe.  We want to open our doors for all information, all constructive criticisms so that we work for the betterment of the people of Lagos and Ogun. The people should not panic. If you kidnap, we are going to use all the avenues at our disposal, including ICT to get you arrested. We have gone digital.

Recent kidnap in Lagos and alleged police negligence

Well, it is easy to criticise. Children sometimes connive with kidnappers to kidnap them to make money from their parents. Ordinarily, police cannot stop that kind of kidnap.

If a child arranges with his friends to kidnap him and get money because his father does not give him money, can police prevent that? When they are contriving that, the Police was not there. There are so many things that the Police cannot prevent.

If a husband in his bedroom fought with his wife and he did something and his wife died, they will say the police is not working but the Police cannot patrol people’s bedrooms. They cannot patrol kitchens. Some men  fight their wives in the kitchen. You don’t fight your wife in the kitchen because it is her headquarters and she can take a knife and stab you. Later, they will say that the police is not working.  Only a criminologist can understand this.

Providing criminal opportunities

There are some people who provide what we call criminal opportunity. For instance, you go to a party and start spraying dollars. You are inviting robbers, simple.  It is an offence to display money in parties. People see you spraying dollars and thieves visit you, would you blame the police?  People should lie low and not be extravagant.

I want Nigerians to be very careful with the crowd they follow, and how to protect themselves from crime.  If they are travelling, they should not shout that they are going to Osogbo tomorrow because people are listening.  Don’t allow ladders near your house because people can climb the ladder and victimize you. If you’re travelling to Enugu or Anambra, and it gets dark in Benin, pass the night at Benin, and continue next morning.

They can victimize you and police cannot be everywhere. So, we are working assiduously to see that these things are stopped. We have a team for this zone that goes round these black spots that make sure that these boys stealing phones are around.  The CP has done a good work by arresting most of them.

SARS and  human rights

We want to tell them that this is democracy.  SARS should operate within the democratic environment. We do not want a situation whereby you arrest people and you think that they are robbers and somewhere along the line, someone has died. Law has provided for that in Chapter IV of the 1999 constitution.

If he must die, let it be by order of the court; he has been sentenced to court and court has found him guilty. We cannot be part of the executive and part of the judiciary. This is democracy. I have seen where the National Human Rights Commission summoned senior officers to appear and explain. We do not want that. That is what we are preaching to them.

It is not like we want to use human rights to hamper their work  but they should do SARS work. They should prevent robbery with a human face in a way that the Nigerian people will be happy, in the way our massive democracy will welcome. So SARS should be very careful.

IG is prepared to give them better uniforms so that people will easily recognize them like SWAT in America. By the time these things come to play, and when you see beautiful Nigeria police, SARS will be there and given the respect and they do the job and bring the job for the betterment of Nigerians and Nigeria.