Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris at a briefing.
Matilda Omonaiye/
About 100 Nigerians are kidnapped on a daily basis, and that is official.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Ibrahim Idris, made the revelation at the weekend, during an interactive session with a group of civil society organisations under the auspices of “The Situation Room’’ in Abuja.
Idris said that with the creation of special task force squadron on terrorism, many kidnappers were arrested, but the country still has 2000 suspected kidnappers out there.
To better protect Nigerians, Idris said that he would withdraw mobile policemen attached to important personalities in the country back to the barracks and closer to the people.
He said that the decision was basically to stem the cases of “incessant kidnapping that has become a challenge that the force received hundreds of cases daily”.
According to him, the authorities had created additional mobile police squadron in states to enhance police operations, and Nigerians would now have more Special Protection Units (SPUs) in the commands in the zones.
He said, “We will withdraw all mobile police back to barracks to concentrate on dealing with serious law and order situation.
“It means that we are stopping deployment of mobile police from protecting VIPs in the country because that is not where they should serve.
“This is to allow us have enough men on the ground to deal especially with the issues of kidnapping.
“We are creating new SPUs in each command; so, virtually all commands will have them, and with the support of the state governments, most of them would be deployed specially to states.’’
Idris also called for the establishment of special courts to address the cases of kidnapping.
He argued that the public felt that kidnappers were not being prosecuted enough “so there is need to seek strict measure to punish them”.
He also mentioned the police’s commitment to apprehending a notorious and wanted kidnapper from Benue who is known as “Ghana’’.
He said his days were numbered.
On his part, Convener of the Situation Room, Mr Clement Nwankwo, called for the prosecution of kidnappers to serve as deterrent to others.
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