The Nigeria Police have devised a new standard operational strategy, aimed at reducing attacks suffered by its men and officers while on duty.

This is one of the outcomes of an emergency meeting of the Police Management Team chaired by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar, at the Force headquarters in Abuja on Monday.

CSP Frank Mba, the Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, disclosed this while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the meeting, during which the killing of 12 police officers by some Niger Delta militants in Bayelsa was discussed.

It would be recalled that the officers were killed in Bayelsa on Friday while on escort duties.

Mba, who did not disclose the strategy, said the new measure was in response to pre-meditated attacks carried out against police officers while on duty.

"Worried by the rising cases of premeditated attacks on police officers, the IG and his management team, rising from an emergency meeting today (Monday), have devised a new standard operational procedure.

"The new strategy is aimed and designed at reducing the vulnerability of police officers and reducing the fatality they suffer while on national assignments," he said.

Mba said the IG had ordered a massive manhunt for the killers of the officers and gave assurance that they would soon be found and brought to book.

He quoted the IG as describing the killing of the officers, who were on legitimate assignment in Bayelsa, as "sad, most unfortunate and unprovoked."

Mba said the death of the officers was another sad reminder of the constant dangers security personnel face in their difficult and challenging tasks of protecting the citizenry.

"For us as police officers, we have resolved that the best posthumous honour we can give to these fallen colleagues and heroes, is to find their killers and find them as quickly as possible," he said.

The country, Mba said was passing through challenging moments in terms of security and gave assurance that the police would not abdicate its responsibility.

"The times are tough, the race against crime is tight and the challenges of crime, enormous.

"These challenges are not insurmountable and they are certainly something we can cross over and we will cross over.

"If Nigerians work together, supports the police and other law enforcement agencies, we will surely and very soon cross over this hard time in our national history," he said.

On the murder of Mr Chinwike Asadu, the Commissioner of Police in Kwara, the force spokesman said the police had made significant progress in its investigation.

He, however, declined to say whether there had been any arrests in connection with the incident.