Police units to collaborate to fight corruption

The Nigeria Police Force said its Public Complaints Response Rapid Unit and the X-Squad would work in synergy to fight corruption in the police and other government agencies.
The Head, PCRRU, Abayomi Shogunle, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Sunday.
Shogunle said: “The PCRRU will work in synergy with x-squad to fight corruption, not only in the police but in other government agencies both at federal, state and local government levels.
“Basically, what the PCRRU is doing now is to make the police to be more open for the citizens to have more access to the police.”
Shogunle said that the x-squad was established to arrest, investigate, discipline and prosecute erring police officers who compromise their positions.
He said: “We are not taking new functions, they are already existing in the law, what the I-G is doing is to ensure that members of the public have easy access to the police.
“We are going closer to the stage, where the public will not have to go to the police station to lodge report, but can only make a call and they will be attended to.”
He added that the repositioning of the complaints unit was in line with the promise made by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, on assumption of office.
Shogunle stated: “Upon assumption of office on June 21, the I-G promised to reposition the police to be more engaging with the members of the public.”
He said that for wider publicity, flyers have been produced in the three major languages and pidgin English.
On the prosecution of an Assistant Commissioner of Police arrested with N2.7 million bribe money, Shogunle said the force was still awaiting feedback from the Police Service Commission.
It would be recalled that the ACP was arrested in October for bribery, following complaints from the public.
He said that the police would ensure that all genuine complaints from members of the public were treated with dispatch.
He said: “Police officers are trained to sieve complaints made to them to see whether such complaints are genuine.
“The law is very clear on any one that gives false information to mislead the public servant.”
He enjoined members of the public to make use of the unit by making complaints on both the police and public servants.
Shogunle also said: “I want to encourage members of the public to make use of the unit by lodging complaints on both the police and public servants.
“This is part of the democratic policing principles that the Inspector-General of Police promised Nigerians.”
The PCRRU is a unit in the police, saddled with the responsibility of receiving and resolving all complaints of police misconduct.