”We have about 10 to 15 policemen with two patrol vehicles for emergencies at virtually all the strategic places within the metropolis, in anticipation of any possible strike from criminals even though their attempt to strike might be minimal, because our men are always battle ready to contain such attacks at any moment. If they should strike there is going to instant response from our officers who are consistently on standby.
We have our buffer zones at places like Asokoro, AYA, Wuse Market, Nicon Junction, Berger Round About Area One, Area 10 and UTC. In all we have about patrol vehicles around the Metropolis of Abuja. I must emphasize that prior before now, all the buffer zones used to be beehive of criminal activities like bag snatching, armed robbery, one chance crime.
In case of Area 10 and Garki, we have already taken appropriate measures to curb the activities of criminals within these areas, we have observed prevalence of crime in recent times within these areas. We have discovered that most of the criminals take off from their shanties that could be seen all over these areas to commit all manner of crimes such as burglary, car theft and one chance robbery.
So, in view of this we had to in partnership with men of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board in such a way that as we arrest the criminals their shanties are being demolished immediately, and of course we have been highly consistent about this method which has worked out well for us. It further explains high reduction of crime and criminality within the Abuja Metropolis.
People should realized the fact that we are constrained by limited number of policemen, and because of this it becomes impossible for us to have all the streets line up with policemen. And this again explains why members of the public also have roles to by ensuring partnership with the police to combat crime. For instance, when you buy a car make sure it is properly and adequately protected if you cannot afford tracking security system you can go for a good padlock to prevent your car from being stolen.
The moment a car thief sights and feels the security in your he avoids anything to do with. It will be very absurd for anyone to shell out a whopping sum of two million to buy a car and find it difficult to buy ten thousand naira security system to protect the car from being stolen. The car tracking security system has been of huge assistance to us. It has really helped us to track lots of stolen vehicles within the FCT and other states of the federation.
It should be realized that most times we need to apply our discretion to avoid crime it’s not everything that the police would have to teach you, you can as well take some measures devoid of police intervention to reduce crime rate, you need not to be told about protection of your car and adequate protection of your homes, all these would go a long way in reducing the burden of police, especially when we do not even have enough policemen on ground, but thank God the Commander-in-Chief has given approval for recruitment of more policemen.
Concerning the security within our gardens, I must say that most of the garden owners in the metropolis of Abuja have been cooperating with us, though with some of them very uncooperative, and this explains why sometimes some garden owners are being arrested together with criminals found in their gardens, but for the security conscious garden owners we do have a very valid synergy, they call us when they observe some strange people, and quickly we move in to effect their arrest.
Overtime we’ve had course to arrest drug dealers and their clients within the Abuja metropolis, especially around Wuse and other areas. What we do is to hand them over to officials of NDLEA for prosecution.”