The Imo State Police Command has said any Point of Sales operator indicted in extortion of citizens by Police operatives will be prosecuted for aiding corruption.
The Imo State Police Public Relations Officer , DSP Henry Okoye, said this while speaking during a live radio programme on The Brief on Groove FM Owerri monitored on Monday morning, following allegations of extortion levelled against operatives of the Joint Task Force team along the Owerri Airport junction on the busy Owerri-Aba Expressway two Sundays ago, where one Stephen Nnaemeka Cookey alleged he was extorted ₦515,000 via a POS operator.
According to him, the Command will not spare PoS operators who aid corrupt police operatives to extort people via money transfers later converted to cash.
Okoye said, “PoS operators should be wary and careful of transactions you make with policemen. If a uniformed police operative tells you to provide your account details and then money is transferred from someone to you, for you to give them cash. We will not spare such PoS operators involved.
“PoS operators should know that any transaction of transfers from anyone for any of our personnel in exchange for cash is a red flag. We will arrest such people for aiding corrupt officers,” Okoye said.
The police spokesperson said the Command was reviewing the activities of the JTF teams noting that if the retraining doesn’t achieve the reforms, then tactical teams will be disbanded.
He said, “We are reviewing the activities of the JTF to know if they require retraining. We might even disband the team if the retraining doesn’t work.
They were set up in response to address kidnapping, terrorism, and armed robbery on the highways. But we have received your complaints now for those places and we will look at the issues holistically,” Okoye said.
Okoye called on security operatives to stop wearing face masks during discharge of their duties to boost public confidence especially while conducting searches on travellers saying such practice can trigger apprehension of robbery on passengers.
He maintained that it was wrong for security operatives to profile youths based on their looks like tattoos, hairstyle, colour, dressing, or any parameters saying it is totally wrong to search people’s phones except such items were considered exhibits in a case.
