Why Criminals In FCT Target Women — Commissioner of Police, Tunji Disu

Commissioner of Police, Tunji Disu was appointed the commissioner of police for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) just over a month ago, however, he has already registered his footprints firmly on the ground.

Like commissioners of police in other states, his mandate is to stamp out crimes and criminals from the nation’s capital and its fringes.

One-chance robbery, kidnapping, car theft and burglary are the most prevalent crimes in the FCT CP Disu has to battle.

Relying on technology and the professionalism of police operatives, CP Disu is steadily taking on criminals. In the last four weeks, at least 438 One-chance robbery vehicles were apprehended along with suspects.

This is why THE WHISTLER went after CP Disu for an interview on how he plans to make the FCT crime-free.

He was willing to answer all questions and sounded very confident that the police would rid the FCT of crimes.

EXCERPTS:

You’ve been policing the Federal Capital Territory for over a month now, how has it been? Difficult or interesting?

I don’t like seeing any of my jobs as difficult. My job is interesting. My job is to find solutions to problems. Dealing with people tripping into my office with their problems is my duty to solve them. So, policing the Federal Capital Territory has been very, very interesting. I have worked there earlier.

I was the commander of the intelligence response team. We had to deal with a lot of interception of high-grade criminals, investigations and many things like that.

However, I found that it’s a different ball game, I am now here as Commissioner of Police. Crimes here are different from the previous state that I came from, that’s Rivers State.

We have a lot of crimes happening daily here in the Federal Capital Territory. We have a lot of crimes coming to the Federal Capital Territory because of people flocking into the city.

For example, the one chance everybody talks about, we notice that most of them come from other states. They flock into the Federal Capital Territory daily as if they are coming for their daily legitimate businesses.

The same thing goes for those who come to steal cars in the Federal Capital Territory and those who specialise in stealing things kept inside vehicles. We notice all of them are flocking into the Federal Capital Territory from neighbouring states.

So, policing in the Federal Capital Territory has been different from other areas. Luckily, we have officers on the ground who are grounded in policing the state area with new kinds of technology, and new kinds of bidding, officers are working up to their responsibilities and a lot of successes are being recorded daily by officers of this command.

About the One-Chance menace, what is the command doing to ensure that the situation is duly handled?

When I came, I had to find out from officers on the ground the prevailing kinds of crimes we have here and they mentioned one chance; they mentioned kidnapping in the outer parts of the town.

One-chance is that kind of robbery where a vehicle is brought out to pretend to be picking up passengers. Along the way, they rob them and throw them out of the vehicle.

At the same time, we did analysis and crime mapping. We discovered that most of the time, the victims are women and children, women especially. We then took our time to find out why women because we all see them as the weaker sex. Yes, I agree.

This is because they came all out to look for women who would give them less resistance and a greater chance of escape, and they mentioned one peculiar thing. They said a lot of women do not stay in the garages.

They like to stay far away from where people will be able to assist them and they mentioned many other reasons why they pick on women.

How has the police tackled the situation?

We have, especially at this period of the year referred to as the ember month where people who never worked from the beginning of the year will like to enjoy, like other people. So how have we been hitting the road?

Increasing visibility of our officers on the road, gathering a lot of intelligence and identifying areas where these crimes are prevalent. That is why you see our officers out on the streets. Talking to members of the public, advising members of the public, and checking vehicles as they are leaving bus stops.

Where are these crimes prevalent?

Think about the bus stop, think about where we have a lot of people flocking back home. Berger, Jahi. In all these areas, we have directed all DPOs (Divisional Police Officers) to come out and ensure they keep their areas free.

We have directed them to come out, especially before people close from work. So, people can come out of their work, board vehicles, and get home safely.

All DPOs and area commanders have been tasked to ensure that we have success in this. Everywhere we have DPOs, everywhere we have police posts, they have been tasked to come out and ensure that this operation is successful.

You recently announced a ban on tinted cars and gave conditions for owning one, is there more to the policy because it appears there are inconsistencies in the policy?

Security is paramount. Anything we want to talk about, we should know that security is paramount. We have a job to do. Everybody is complaining about One Chance and what the police, government and the FCT Minister are doing about it.

We need to do a lot of things about it. We noticed that a lot of these vehicles used for one chance are tinted. You can see, as you are entering this headquarters; that we have them still lined up there. All the vehicles you see out there were recovered from people operating one chance and all of them have something in common — They are all fully tinted.

We are going to see the vehicles when we go out. The ones arrested previously operated in tinted glasses. We have interviewed people who have become victims of them. People who have been rescued. We asked them what happened to them.

The painful thing is that they pass through police checking points, and crowded areas trying to call members of the public for assistance, and nobody will see them in the vehicles. So, it’s painful when they are being kidnapped, and you see people who could assist you, you cannot shout to them because those outside cannot see you inside.

People who are armed are using tinted vehicles, they are menace to members of the public and security operatives because police will not be able to react quickly if you are armed, aiming at them from vehicles that are tinted.

We have a job to do. Security supersedes everything, so we have decided to clamp down on them, nobody has a right to tint their vehicles. Nobody!

What is the stand of the police command? What should those without factory-tinted vehicles do?

That takes us to the issue of properly tinted glasses. We cannot ask you to go and remove your glasses, register them as has been said earlier, and use your vehicle. But what we are talking about now are those who, out of their own volition, especially commercial vehicles…

You ask yourself, why should commercial vehicles tint their glasses? Why should they? For God’s sake, fully tinted vehicles? Even the front windscreen, is tinted?

If you say we should leave everybody to use tinted glasses, if you say we should allow criminals to do whatever they want, that’s a different ballgame.

We have decided we want the people to have a wonderful celebration. We have also decided we want to clamp down on one chance and then, the funny thing is, we are beginning to record successes.

We can, as of yesterday we displayed for you, six different groups of people operating one chance. About 17 people who were members of the one-chance group were removed from society so that everybody could move around peacefully.

We have children, house helps, and even ourselves, is it safe for us to board public transport? It’s not safe. We have to keep the community safe. We have to keep the roads safe. We have a duty to provide security.

With the emergence of new roads in the FCT, how is the police collaborating with the FCTA to ensure security presence on these roads, particularly the installation of street lights?

The police and other security agencies have regular meetings with the minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, where we discuss issues bordering on security. We discuss issues bordering on trends about crimes and issues of lighting in the town.

In the last meeting we had, if I remember vividly, the minister talked about lighting up areas that are not lighted because, from research, we know that if areas are lighted, more than 80-90 per cent of the security issues have been tackled.

It is in areas that are not well-lit that you see crimes becoming more and more prevalent. We are identifying these areas and we are recording it, we are giving it to the minister for him to do what is necessary.

Yes, more roads, and more responsibility for us as police officers because almost all crimes you can think about at the end of the day must end on the road. That means it must end with somebody using a vehicle. Somebody has been kidnapped, he used a vehicle to escape, houses have been burgled, and they used the road to escape.

So that is more job for us, we are identifying the roads, we are looking out for areas where we will be able to monitor what goes on, on the road.

Don’t forget that we are utilising technology as well. A lot of bus stops will have technology deployed to see what is happening at the bus stop. We can scrutinise a lot of people at the bus stop without them knowing. We are already deploying unmanned area vehicles, that’s drones, in a lot of places.

Recently, a vehicle was stolen, the owner was put in the vehicle and they moved around, but he told us on time that he had the device that would switch the vehicle off in 10 minutes, and then the vehicle switched off. We deployed the drone to look for static vehicles and successfully the vehicle was recovered where it was impacted.

With these proposed installations of infrastructure, how is the FCT Command ensuring that every street light and technology device on the road is guarded?

Yes, first and foremost we want members of the public to be able to know that all government infrastructures are our own. It is everybody’s duty to put their eyes on them and ensure the safety of all government properties. The manhole, the cables, because if they are gone, we are all going to suffer for it.

Luckily for us, we have been able to arrest some vandals with three kilometres worth of length of cable already removed from underground. We are trying frantically to pick their usual receivers, which have been gone and a lot of things recovered from them include stolen doors, stolen cables and many other electrical appliances that have been recovered from them.

We all know that the attitude of officers is tantamount to the degree of security they can provide, how is the command ensuring that police officers are of civil behaviour, especially those positioned at roadblocks, extorting money from road users?

The inspector general of the police has said time and time again that indiscipline of any sort will not be condoned. In the last meeting we had with the inspector general of police, he mentioned it to the commissioners of police at the briefing.

He said there would be vicarious liability. That means they will be held responsible for the indiscipline displayed by their officers.

So, that is the IGP warning officers including commissioners of police and other senior officers to look out for indiscipline among their men, to talk to their men, and ensure that they punish them whenever they go against our discipline. We have been doing this. A lot of officers have been dismissed.

A lot have been reduced in rank and many other punishments are given to them. At the same time, the IGP said, I want those who are doing well to be awarded. He also enjoined commissioners of police to go back to their states, give awards and recommend promotions.

In line with IGP’s instruction regarding phone searching, will your men also adhere to the instructions?

One more time, I’m going to reiterate that nobody has the right to stop you on the road and search your phones. Police officers do not have the right to stop you on the road and search your phones.

But don’t forget that there are instances where police officers will have custody of your phone and do a proper search of it. There are instances where you involve yourself in certain crimes and after certain things are done, the police can have access to your phone to unravel a lot of crimes.

However, police officers will not stop you on the road and demand you to start searching your phone or your computers. No, those are not acceptable.

If anyone finds themselves in this situation, what should they do?

Call the PRO (FCT Police Public Relations Officer), our phone numbers are everywhere: the public complaint room, all the police are there manned 24 hours. Even my phone number is out in the public. Call us, send text messages to us, we’ll work on it. We’ll give you feedback about what we’ve done about it.

What are your success stories?

So far, so good, with this operation we have started, we have had police officers clamp down on a total of 438 vehicles, of which 406 were tinted vehicles, some were moving around with fully tinted glasses, but most of them opted to remove them (tinted glass), which was good, and they have been released to go.

Then we had 38 vehicles moving around in town without registration numbers. That is not acceptable. You should not drive your vehicle without it being registered. I think one or two of them have been charged in court.

We allowed a lot of them to go and register their vehicles after profiling them. They fixed the plate numbers before they moved them out of there.

Also, we have been able to rescue four women who were kidnapped by these one-chance people, and they have been able to tell us their experience with them.

At the same time, we have been able to arrest 13 people who deliberately covered their registration numbers. It is criminal for you to cover the registration numbers of your vehicles and we have told our officers to continue in this.

At the same time, I want to use this opportunity to enjoin members of the public, to look out for the activities of our men. They should not turn this operation into a money-making avenue. If you see them demanding money, doing what is not expected of them, our numbers are in the public domain. Send us text messages, and I will act on it immediately.

What is your general advice to FCT residents, with the Yuletide season in view, regarding security?

Security is everybody’s business. I can remember vividly two occasions, when somebody’s car was robbed, and passers-by quickly called the control room, and the vehicles were recovered within one or two hours. I want to give kudos to those people who did that.

They did not start recording the incident with their phones. They did what they were supposed to do, giving credit to the popular saying in the police and the public now that ‘if you see something, say something’.

Everybody should be every other person’s keeper now, watch out for your neighbours. If you notice anything that is not right; if it does not look right, it is probably not right. Quickly call the police, or call the neighbourhood watch to assist, in passing this message over.

If you are travelling, or if you are moving out of your house, ensure that members of your family know where you are going to, and if you are meeting new people, just like our mother taught us when we were young, treat everybody new as strangers, and there are ways to relate with strangers.

Everybody you meet on the internet, and social media, treats them as strange because they are strangers. If you are going to meet them, meet them in open places, in front of the police station, in front of a big market, and the daytime people will be there to assist you in case of any danger.