Kwara State special police constabularies are at liberty to honourably disengage from the service if they so wish, the state Police Commissioner, Tuesday Assayomo has declared.

He stated this on Saturday while reacting to a viral video that showed a purported protest by some policemen over the non-payment of salary for one year.

The Kwara State Police Command, while clarifying the development in a statement by its spokesman, Okasanmi Ajayi, in Ilorin on Saturday, said “the characters seen in the video are police special constabularies recruited to complement the operation of community policing.

“It is important to state that the concept of community policing and recruitment of special constabularies is voluntary in nature, meaning they are not on monthly remuneration like the conventional policemen.

“This much the constabularies were briefed before taking up the job, besides, the job is not a full time job.”

It further explained that “due to the complaints of the constabularies regarding non payment of stipends by the state government, they were invited for a meeting by the state government on ways by which their complains could be looked into, hence their invite to the government house today.”

The statement expressed surprise that the same set of constabularies after the meeting with agents of the state government could go online with a video claiming that the government was owing them salaries for a year.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, CP Tuesday Assayomo, “wishes to state categorically, that the police is not owing any policeman or woman any salary, neither is the police owing the special constabularies salary.

“Therefore, members of the public are advised to disregard the viral video as it was designed to embarrass the police and also to draw an undue sympathy from the public.”