By Godwin Egba - Port Harcourt
The Rivers State police command may have its challenges in combating crimes on daily basis, but it is not left out alone in the fight as it now enjoys support from some loyal and responsible members of the public through provision of security information.
Such members of the public in the State capital, according to dependable police source include Comrade Ateke Tom, a popular known Niger Delta freedom fighter/ ex-militant High Commander and the Community Development Chairmen (CDC) all of Okrika Local Government Area of the state.
A cross –section of high ranking police officers who preferred anonymity told Daily Independent in an interview that “since the establishment of the Federal Government Amnesty Initiative to integrate the ex-Niger Delta militants into the civil society, rate of kidnapping and other crimes which were hitherto at an alarming rate had reduced to below 50 percent in the state.”
The police source specifically mentioned Ateke Tom and the Okrika Community Development youth leaders and chairmen to be among those who embraced police community relations and have alerted the police command and division of suspicious crime elements like human adoption, robbery or communal crisis.
An Okrika high profile chief who also pleaded anonymity for security reasons disclosed that the Okrika Divisional Police Headquarters now enjoys 70 per cent co-operation from some of the responsible and loyal Okrikans and as such criminality is at low ebb across the Okrika up – land area used to be known as a militant zone.
The chief said that the Okrika DPO initiated his security management style by accommodating all members of the community who approached him with their complaints, pointing out that some peculiar problems that generated crisis among the communities included, land tussle and chieftaincy matters, unlike stealing or house breaking which occur once in a while.
Daily Independent source admitted that Okrika had witnessed some crisis during the last general elections, adding that despite the land –locked nature of the zone, the police was still able to ensure that lives and properties were protected.
He added that out of seventy –eight communities that made up the Okrika mangrove Riverine, Kalio community alone had about thirteen factionalised chiefs who would not compromise chieftaincy and land issues.
He regretted that the people, whose major occupation was fishing, had lost much of their economic source to high oil pollution in the water, land and air.
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