A non-governmental organisation, Community Policing Partners, based in Abak, Akwa Ibom State, has berated security agencies for constituting nuisance against the public they are paid to serve.
The group noted that security forces in Nigeria had alienated themselves from the people and become organs of victimization against the civil populace.
At an interactive session with newsmen in, Abak local government at the weekend, its executive director, Barrister Saviour Akpan, said security agencies had completely neglected their primary responsibility of serving the people and become revenue agents in their areas of calls.
He said, “The worse still is the active connivance of Federal Road Safety corps (FRSC) with the judiciary to victimize the Nigeria citizens in the name of mobile courts.
“If you look at the laws establishing the Federal Road Safety Corps, stopping and finding out the extent of road worthiness of a vehicle is no longer the primary responsibility of the organisation, it is more or less the 3rd or 4th responsibility of that agency.
“But the primary responsibility of that agency has been totally and completely neglected because they have now turned themselves instead of a safety organisation to revenue generating organisation, to the detriment of the already impoverished masses of the country.
He said the situation in Akwa Ibom State was so pathetic that the road safety organisation was organising mobile courts every two weeks, where citizens were forced to pay as much as N50,000 for minor traffic offences, by a magistrate who is supposed to be an impartial arbiter of the administration of justice.
Akpan who is a member of the International Code of Conduct Association blasted the Nigeria police for completely alienating themselves from the people, stressing the police could not exist without the people.
According to him police are still charging bail up to N150,000 for minor offences after sixteen years of interrupted democracy in Nigeria, and are still conducting arrest after arrest of suspect criminals.
He however did not spare the Nigeria Security and the Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) and the Directorate of State Security service (DSS).
The Executive Director said immediately the Civil Defense Corps was given arms its mentality to members of the public changed and became bully organs against the hapless masses.
He said, “The Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, immediately they were given arms their mentality to the public changed.”
Akpan who disclosed that his organisation was planning a public dialogue to build public confidence in security agencies operations in the country also called for a radical change.
According to him the envisaged change was not about the change slogan of the All Progressives Party, but a change about the patriotic zeal of Nigerian to sustain Nigeria even the yet unborn.
But when contacted the Police Public Relations officer in Akwa Ibom State, Chukwu Ikechukwu, said anybody who said that police had alienated themselves from the public was probably from another planet.
He said, “Is the person not from Akwa Ibom State here? Is he from another planet that he cannot see what police are doing in the state?
“The police are doing their best within the limited resources available; we cannot be attached to every individual in the state. The number of police in Nigeria is not up to the United Nations requirement, we cannot be everywhere.”
