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CP Hafiz Inuwa.

The Commissioner of Police, Delta State Command, Mr Hafiz Inuwa has restated the need for community policing as the best way out of combating crimes in society.

CP Inuwa made the emphasis yesterday when he a paid courtesy call on the Executives and members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Delta State Council at the temporary Press Center, Oghara Street, DDPA Estate, Asaba.

He noted that community policing was also the best way of carrying the society along.

The Delta State Police Command boss who stated that he was at the NUJ Press Centre to familiarize himself with the State Council’s pen pushers, disclosed that not only police or security agents know about crime but that journalists’ contributions do help in unraveling and curbing of crimes in society.

“Policing a society is not an easy thing. To achieve the desired or expected results you need the support of the general public/society. We need your cooperation to bring the level of crime to the lowest minimum in the State,” he said.

While appealing to the public to turn in any information that could help to combat crime, CP Inuwa disclosed that the command had recovered more than 10 weapons from criminals and had also been bursting fraudsters since his arrival two weeks ago.

“We face lots of challenges in the course of our duties but we will continue to change our strategies so that we will be ahead of criminals. We will not sit down to wait for crime to happen first before acting, but will take the war to the door steps of criminals.

“We are soliciting partnership with the NUJ as the watchdog of the society, please help with the right information that will assist the police in curbing crime,” Inuwa stated.

He appealed to members of the union not to heat up the polity by ascribing stories to certain political party to avoid clashes and political insurgency, explaining that such would not make elected leaders settled down to perform.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the Delta State Council of NUJ, Comrade Michael Ikeogwu commended the CP for being the first of the about four CPs in the last three years to visit the NUJ Press Center.

While pledging full cooperation and support of the union with the Nigeria Police, Comrade Ikeogwu noted that the police was the closest security agency to the people, adding that their reports appear.

He expressed worries that despite the alarming number of police road blocks in the state, there was still high rate of crime and other economic insecurity like bunkering and kidnapping.

While condemning the action of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ekpan who allegedly slapped a woman in Warri, Comrade Ikeogwu said CP Inuwa had the passion to correct some of the abnormalities of some of the men of the State Command.

On commissioner’s support for community policing using local vigilante to assist, he said that some vigilante members had questionable characters, revealing that some belonged to different cult groups and usually aide their members when in trouble.

The chairman assured CP Inuwa that members of the union would be advised not to be pointing political crimes to any political party without verifiable facts in their reports.

Comrade Ikeogwu appealed to the Nigeria Police to always investigate and verify cases well before charging people to court to reduce congestion in the correctional centres.

The CP was accompanied by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), DCP Aminu Hassan, ACP Imade, and State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) DSP Onome Onovwakpoyeya, among others.