The Need To Curb Incessant Attacks On Police Stations

The bizarre and lawless trend of irate mobs and criminals burning down police stations at will is turning into a national pastime. In the latest assault, a mob attacked and razed the Divisional Police Headquarters in Ihitte/Uboma Local Government Area of Imo State to protest the alleged police killing of a youth.

Two police officers sustained injuries in the attack. Such awful acts, which are irritatingly advertising the country’s shambolic state, thrive ominously in many states of the federation. There is an increasing need to protect police stations from criminals and arsonists.

The public is conditioned to assume that police stations are safe from active shooter events and other threats, but reports of attacks on the police facilities have been brutal, daring and bloody. In most cases, hapless cops in the stations during the attacks were not spared. Some did not live to narrate the horrendous onslaught. Robbers, in some instances, headed to police stations deliberately to kill cops and vandalise the stations before embarking on their brutal operations.

Most of the cases are disconcerting. In February, gunmen attacked the Obowo Divisional Police Headquarters located at Umulowe community in Imo and killed two officers on duty. The same month, in commando-style, hoodlums laid siege to Aboh Mbaise Divisional Police Headquarters in the same state and set it ablaze. The officers on duty reportedly fled as the hoodlums brazenly carried out the arson on the facility.

The police in Oyo State disclosed that five stations were burnt by hoodlums during the violence that trailed the #EndSARS protests in the state. Sadly, Lagos State was cruelly hit during the period. The state police command said 25 stations were razed, including Orile, Amukoko, Layeni, Ilasamaja, Ikotun, Ajah, Igando, Elemoro, Makinde, Onipanu, Ebute-Ero, Pen-Cinema, Isokoko, Alade, Cele, Igbo Elerin, Shibiri, Gbagada, Onilekere, Makoko, Daleko, Asahun, Makinyo, Amuwo-Odofin and Anti-Kidnapping, Surulere. Police stations in Ojoo, Ojodu, Mowo, PPL and Morogbo in the state were also vandalised, but not burnt.

Last year, suspected armed robbers attacked the divisional police headquarters at Igueben, Edo State, carting away arms and ammunition and injuring two officers. The assailants reportedly used an explosive device, believed to be locally-made dynamite, to gain access to the facility. Last December, a mob torched a police station in Igboukwu in the Aguata LGA of Anambra State.

Also, a divisional police station in Akwa Ibom was razed by suspected cultists this month in the Essien Udim LGA of the state. During the attack, the armed louts reportedly headed for the armoury to steal arms and ammunition. The police leadership disclosed that 22 officers died and 205 police stations and formations torched nationwide following the #EndSARS protests.

Therefore, there is a need to shield and protect police stations from further violation by fortifying them. The police hierarchy should rethink policing strategies and tactically install state-of-the-art equipment in the facilities to monitor movements in and around the stations.

The police authorities need to install bullet-resistant glass barriers and other protective devices in police stations. Stations should be fused with modern technology such as gun/metal detection systems, automated licence plate readers, drones, shotspotter, and surveillance cameras among others.

On their part, police officers ought to be combat-ready always and provided with essential tools such as body cameras, thermal imaging and others to foresee and forestall threats. This is vital as some reports noted that the bloody attacks on stations usually caught the officers off guard. The incidents in Ondo, Kwara and Edo states credibly affirmed this claim.

Last October in France, about 40 people wielding metal bars and using fireworks as projectiles, struggled to invade a police station at Champigny in the Paris suburbs. Their goal was crystal-clear, but the police remained unbendable.

They professionally resisted the onslaught and no cop or any of the intruders was injured. The Nigeria Police should copy this excellent policing tactic to send a strong message to louts that it would no longer be business as usual. It should be noted that if efforts are not strengthened to decisively reverse the drift, the perpetrators would be emboldened to execute more daring acts and attract collaborators.

Nigerians should be encouraged to rise to defend the facilities as public property during attacks and not see them as belonging to the police who they have understandably related with in distrust. It was the case at the Edmonton Police Station in the United Kingdom when a man rammed a vehicle into the main entrance and alighted to pour petrol in the street.

Read Also: UPDATE: Reasons Why Angry Youths Burnt Down Imo Police Station (Video)

Members of the public swiftly joined forces with the police to capture the man and stopped the fire from spreading. There is a need for the police to work diligently to win the trust of Nigerians if they desire quality collaborative efforts from them. The relationship between the public and police is not cordial as the latter’s institutional and operational models are painfully tormenting to the people they are paid to protect.

Persons arrested in connection with attacks on police stations should be made to face the full wrath of the law to serve as a deterrent to other aspiring law-breakers. The National Orientation Agency also has a critical role to play in re-orientating Nigerians on the need to protect public buildings and promote outstanding values.

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The NOA, as part of its goals to “accurately and adequately inform; and sufficiently mobilise citizens to act in ways that promote peace and harmony,” should live up to its billing by enlightening the citizens on the safety of public property.