Dickson Condemns Attacks On Cops, Calls For Better Police Funding

• Former Bayelsa Gov, Dickson has condemned attacks on cops, calls for better police funding.

The immediate past Governor of Bayelsa State, and Senator representing Bayelsa West, Seriake Dickson, has condemned in strong terms the violent attacks and killing of policemen and other security agents in parts of the country.

Dickson admonished  the perpetrators  of  the heinous act to stop the savage attacks on operatives  deployed to carry out their constitutional responsibility of securing the nation.

The Senator spoke during a solidarity visit to the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr Usman Alkali, and the top leadership of the Force at the Louis Edet House Police Headquarters, Abuja.

The former Governor solidarised with with the IGP and his team and also called for better funding of the police.

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He said, “This is a very trying period in the life of our country and particularly for the police and I thought that I should be here as the policeman that I always will be, to show support, to show concern and to join in condemning these acts of aggression visited on law-abiding people doing their best to protect citizens of our country.

“I want to also use this opportunity to call for a cessation of all such attacks on police formations, officers and men that are going on in some parts of our country and to tell everybody that the police are not your problem, the police are not your enemies.

“Police officers and men are your brothers and sisters from all parts of our country. I was also one of them so I consider it as something that could have happened to me too.”

The Senator called for more funding for the police to put the force in the position to procure equipment and organize regular training for their men for optimum performance.

Dickson said that the police remained the most critical frontline law enforcement and security agency with the widest spread across the country in the campaign against crime, noting that they deserved better funding.

According to him, “Any country where the police are undermined and neglected, where the police are not funded, where the police officers are not trained properly, where the police officers have no equipment to work with, where the police officers have low morale, cannot have security.”

Dickson, while commending the IG and his team for doing a wonderful job in this trying period, assured them that the nation was with them in the goal of securing the nation.

“Once again, I appreciate the IG, his officers and men for trying their best at this very difficult circumstances and I also use this opportunity to remind our nation and all of us who are in leadership that the sooner we go back to funding of the police as it was in those days, the better for everybody.

“This is because the police is the only institution that has presence in all our communities and yet their vehicles cannot run, they do not even have vehicles. Where they have vehicles, they cannot fuel or maintain them and they have low morale. They have no money to train and equip them. You cannot have security in a nation like that,” the Senator noted.

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