Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Command of the Nigerian Police, Ngozi Braide has praised members of the public for actively collaborating with the security agents, as the joint partnership is responsible for the general decline in kidnapping, car-snatching and other criminal acts in the state.
Speaking in an interview shortly after her appointment, Braide observed that in the past, the public found it difficult to volunteer information that would help in tracking down criminals. She therefore called for continued partnership, especially through such avenues as the radio programme, Crime Doctor, that has enhanced constant interaction between the general public and the Police.
She recalled that she created the Public Complaint Bureau, where members of the public come to make complaints involving police officers.
“I ensure that I give them feedback and ensure that the cases are resolved”, eh said. “I also tried to go to schools to educate the young ones on security and other crime related matters. Though the office came with a lot of challenges but by the special grace of God, I have been able to weather those challenges that came”.
She debunked insinuation making the rounds that armed robbers who attack or kill policemen are promptly rounded up, giving priority to their own.
“No, we should not attach sentiments to this because we do not apprehend them because they killed police officers, but because of what they did. We round up every criminal whether he attacked a civilian or officer. We need information from the public, so it is not because you killed policemen; it could be anybody”.
She handpicked the recovery of vehicles from criminal gangs as arguably the major achievement of the Police in Lagos.
“We recover a minimum of 10 vehicles every week and it may interest you to know that most of the vehicles are not stolen from here; they are stolen from other states. But they believe we are close to the border, so they always try to make their way through this state. We recover minimum of 10 or even more than 20 every week.
“Criminals are very smart but the removal of road blocks is helping us. That time [the era of road blocks], they knew where you were; they knew where you were positioned; or the time another set took over and handed over. They usually monitored the whole thing but now that element of surprise is there. And that is very helpful”.
She attributed the reduction of crime to the barest minimum during the Yuletide was a result of conscious planning and execution of security initiatives, which was made possible by ensuring high security visibility backed with motorized patrol.
Commending efforts of State Commissioner of Police, Omar Manko whom she described as one the best crime fighters in the country, she maintained that since 2012, there has never been any successful bank robbery in Lagos State, adding that the only two attempts made in that direction were foiled.
“What you are seeing is the handwork of a crime fighter; that is, CP Manko. The man has zero tolerance for crime. Another thing is the drastic reduction on crime. If you look at our statistics, since we started you will see a drastic reduction in crime rate.
“What we keep doing is we keep going back to the drawing board to look at what we need to add and what we need to improve upon. With what you have seen now, 2014 is going to be better and it will be shocking to people and they will be wondering how it is being done”.
She recalled that during the period, patrol policing was regular and there were lots of undercover operatives too, who even covered overhead bridges as well.
“We also ensured that all abandoned and uncompleted buildings were monitored because we have discovered that criminals always hide their weapons in abandoned buildings rather than keeping them at home.
“So we had to send our operatives to areas we expected problems to come from like markets, churches, mosques and so on. We also built security around financial houses. We also ensured that Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) were ready and we made sure that all our mobile police units like mopol 20, 22, 23, 45 the RRS (Rapid Response Squad) the OPS Attack and other units were on standby so that whenever we heard anything we moved without looking for who to go.
“All the area commanders and police divisional heads were placed on standby based on the order of the commissioner of police. They were warned that there would not be any excuse and that any time they heard anything they must move immediately. So all these were put in place and that was why we didn’t have any problem”.
