The Commissioner of Police, Delta State Command, Muhammed Ali, has decried the shortage of prosecuting personnel in the state.
CP Ali stated this while speaking to journalists on efforts of the command to the state crime free state.
He said, “Inadequate prosecutors is one of major challenges facing the command.
“The number of personnel needed to go
to various courts to prosecute these cases are not there. More often, we received complained from judges and magistrates complaining of prosecutors.
“We don’t have enough of them to prosecute cases, that’s why we are appealing to government to recruit more.”
Giving the statistics of various crimes within the last one year in the state, Ali said over 1,760 have so far arrested from 2021 to date.
He added that 339 armed robbery suspects, 116 kidnappers,1,200 cultists and 108 murder suspects have been arrested from last year till date.
400 assort armed, life ammunition and cartridges is 12,456 were recovered while 130 kidnapped victims were rescued among others,” the police boss added.
Ali who listed lack of finding, training and retraining of personnel, accommodation/welfare of the officers, arms/ logistics as part of challenges, said most of the operating vehicles have been the road for the past 15 years.
“No enough vehicles to operate, the ones we are using now are racketeering and can hardly pursue criminals. Most of the vehicles have been on the road for the past 10-15 years.
“Equipment to fight criminals is also a major challenge as 53 divisions, eight Area Commands, State CID and other tactical teams are under the Command. Though challenges are part of life” he added.
On the conduct of officers, the State Police boss said the command had applied carrot and stick approach to control the conduct of officers, noting that many have been dismissed, have their rank reduced while many were also rewarded with CP commendation and award.