POLICEMEN MUST DECLARE THEIR ASSETS....Ag IG OF POLICE

Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris has directed officers from the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) must declare their assets.

Idris, who spoke in Abuja yesterday during a visit to the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, said: “We are going to make sure that our police officers are more accountable to the people and we are going to make sure that we take over the street from criminals and ensure that our presence is felt in our cities, towns and villages.

“We are also going to operate within the concept of Rule of Law and the Code of Conduct Law of this country and the Section 13 of the Code provides that every officer must declare their asset and I am assuring you that every police officer from my rank (IGP) to the Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP)  must declare their asset.

On why officers must declare their assets, he said: “Under Section 13 of the Code of Conduct law, Cap 15 in the Federal Law of Nigeria, every police officer from the IGP to the ASPs are the Commission officers and they must declare their asset.

“I must declare my assets  and every police officer must declare his asset since I am declaring mine. They are the commissioned officers under our structure and it is the requirement of the Code of Conduct Law of Federal Republic of Nigeria and I don’t think a sate made law for the fun of it. The essence of making law for everybody to declare his or her asset is to uphold certain rules.”

He explained that the order is aimed at ensuring that “we are morally sound and that people should have limitation in what we are doing in life”.

 Idris added:“I told you when I took over that the NPF will henceforth be governed by the Code of Conduct values and internationally recognised core values of policing. We are trying to standardise Nigeria Police Force and one of the requirement is that we must do things according to law and the law requires that every police officer must declare his asset.”

Speaking on the fight against corruption amongst civil servants, he said: “For some time now, what people see is the EFCC and DSS but if you look at the Nigeria Police Force when we joined, the X-Squad were the covered police personnel that go after policemen and anybody because if you look at Section 4 of the Police Act, police serve the responsibility to prevent crime, to enforce; so, fighting crime is in line with our duties.

“In line with the current administration’s fight against corruption, our X-Squad will be strengthened and we are going to give them the incentives to work and their activities will not be limited to police alone. We will go after the local government, state government and Federal Government employees because the constitution permits us to do that,” he added.

The Minister of Interior said  the expectations of Nigerians from acting IG was very high.

The minister said: “You have quite a lot of challenges as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in this country and with the kind of internal security challenges we are having, you have a lot to do and you have to spend a lot of time and effort to deal with the situation.

“There are situations in the Niger Delta that you need to look into and you have to tackle violent crimes and conventional crimes which includes; armed robbery, kidnapping, rape amongst others.”

Gen. Dambazzau also urged him to ensure that the discipline and welfare of officers and men of the Force were not taken for granted.