Abubakar Yakubu
5 January 2009
Police officers in the Federa Capital Territory and Nasarawa State have decried the manner at which armed robbery suspects are being granted bail by courts.
The officers said with the release of such persons, the lives of investigating police officers as well as informants will be put at risk.
"It is ridiculous that arguments for their release are made by learned counsels and effected by judges without taking note of the prosecutor's augments," an officer lamented.
He said in order to reduce crime in the society; prosecutors should pursue their robbery cases more vigorously by emphasizing to the judge the reason why such robber should not be allowed to wonder on the streets.
It would be recalled that a robbery kingpin, Chukwuka Igwe, who was released by a court in Cross Rivers State recently, vowed to attack policemen serving at Mararaba Police Divisional.
Surveillance officers of the station, who had of the robber's threat arrested the man and were surprised when he admitted telling his friends at a beer parlour at Mararaba, that he will launch an aggressive battle against policemen at Mararaba for the sufferings they put him through.
The robber had confessed to the press that he made the statement out of annoyance because the police at Calabar freed the robbery king pin and arrested three of them, after they sold a car they stole at Mararaba in Calabar.
"Only three of us were locked up in police detention since February, 2008 until the court released us," the robber was quoted to have said.
When our reporter visited Mararaba Police Station over the weekend, a policeman said that the same robber has been arrested recently for another crime.
"His face is a familiar one here since 2005, as they have been bringing him in for one offence or the other of which he doesn't spend time in detention before the court release's him," the officer lamented.
Similarly, a police officer advised bank's operators to follow the proper process when inviting them to provide security for their bullion vans.
"Like the inspector-general of police has said, bank's sending such requests must have the modern bullion van as well as submit proper request letters to divisional police officers within the FCT," he said.
He said such letters to the divisional police officers must contain detailed descriptions of the routes the bank officials would follow so that the police send advance teams to ensure security," the officer explained.
He said requests sent by banks do not contain details of the routes the bank officials will follow and such mistakes make them easy targets for robbers.
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