The Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Olusola Amore, has recorded breakthroughs in combating crimes in the state through his community policing strategy, writes Hammed Shittu
Upon assumption of office last year as the new Commissioner of Police in Kwara State, Mr. Olusola Amore, said that his main concern was to make life bearable for the residents of the state in the prevention and tackling of crimes and other social vices in the state.
As part of strategy to achieve the above goal, Amore said that his administration would ensure that community policing thrived well in the state so as to allow people of the state irrespective of their status to be involve and participate in the fight against crimes in the state.
In doing this, the state Police Commissioner ordered the Divisional Police Officers in all the 16 local government areas of the state to paste his personal telephone lines on all the notice boards of their various offices for all the residents of the state to have access to the telephone lines.
The development however allowed individual residents of the state to have direct access to the telephone line of Amore and this at the end assisted the state police command to get necessary information without any hindrance.
Such strategy had given the state police command and the commissioner to know various hideouts of criminals in the state and thus helped the commissioner to have information capable of preventing and tackling crimes across the 16 local government areas.
The residents at times call the state police commissioner at odd hours of the night on the activities of criminals which led to arrests of criminals in the state.
No wonder, the state police command recently made a successful outing in the harvest of arrests of some criminals that had been terrorising the residents of the state from their various locations in the state.
One of such breakthroughs was the incident of the homicide committed by some suspected armed robbers that killed a couple at their residence at Tanke area of Ilorin after they had raped the 66-year-old woman, killed her and his husband before they were dumped inside a well in their house.
The incident occurred two days to the last Christmas celebration in the state.
Parading the suspects that participated in the dastardly act in Ilorin recently, Amore said that, "On the 21 December, 2016 at about 1430 hrs, one Bernard family who happens to be a family member of late Micheal Akhigbe reported at Area F? Division, Tanke, Ilorin, that he visited the house of the deceased to convey him to work as usual of him, only for him to discover he and his wife, one Juana Akhigbe were nowhere to be found."
He said, "On the strength of the report police detectives visited the house and on close observation discovered blood stains in the room of the deceased couple, a search in the compound led detectives to a well where the bodies of the deceased were found.
"The couple bodies were later found dumped in a well within the premises. The? bodies were recovered and investigation that followed led to the arrests of one Adeyemi Aderinkomi and Timothy Ajayi, mastermind of the crime.
"In the course of interrogation, they confessed to the raping of the woman before killing her and her husband, carting away their properties which included one Toyota Camry car, telephone handsets, money and others.
"The suspects sold some of the stolen items to buyers already arrested and to cover track, they set the Toyota Camry saloon car they took from the house ablaze.
"The suspects confessed to have dumped the victims in the well to prevent detection and exhibits were recovered from the receivers while effort is still on to arrest the other suspects presently on the run."
Amore however said that, the suspects would soon be arraigned in court.
Also, a middle-aged man who claimed to be one of the officers of the In?dependent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) has been arrested by the police.
The suspect according to THISDAY checks was arrested at the Queen Secondary School, Ilorin, while trying to perpetrate a shoddy deal.
It was gathered that, the suspect had presented a petition written by an unknown person to the management of the school that, they the management was involve in a fraud running into several thousands of naira.
Sources close to the school told journalists that upon showing the petition to the management of the school which they denied, one of the staff of the school smartly went out to inform the state Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Alhaji Musa Yeketi.
Sources added that, it was at this point that the commissioner informed the state police command and the suspect was subsequently rounded up at the school.
Amore who said that the suspect was now at the police net in Ilorin, said the suspect has agreed to help the police on the veracity of his claim to be one of the officers of ICPC.
He said that, "we have commenced investigations on the alleged move of the suspect and as soon as the investigation is completed then the state police command would arraign him if found culpable in the act."
The state police command has done so well in the area of crime prevention and detection as it has busted and prosecuted six kidnap cases, 42 armed robbery cases and prosecuted eight cult related cases, 36 cultists cases prosecuted, eight rape cases while 10 homicide cases were handled by the state police command.
The state police command has recovered 23 different categories of fire arms and large numbers of the ammunitions were recovered since the new state police commissioner took over the mantle of leadership of the state police command.
The state police commissioner however promised the residents of the state not to relent in his efforts in ensuring that criminals are driven out of the state.
He therefore called for more support of the residents of the state to continue to inform the state police command on the whereabouts of these criminals in order to arrest them as this would boost the economic development of the state.
