IG visits Lagos, urges policemen not to be discouraged
The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, on Tuesday urged men and officers of the Nigerian Police Force in Lagos State not to be discouraged by the destruction and killings that trailed the #EndSARS protest in the state.
He asked them to see what happened as part of the risks of their job and take it in good faith.
Adamu spoke during a visit to the State House, Marina, to commiserate with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on the destruction of public and private property in the state.
The IG admitted that the morale of the police was down after the ugly incident, in which six cops were lynched and 36 critically injured.
Adamu said the police had widened its intelligence to trace and arrest those that carried out the act.
Adamu said the scale of the destruction witnessed in Lagos and around the country called for the adoption of standard protocols for public protests in order not to allow miscreants to hijack them.
“The moment the protest organizers don’t have leadership, the purpose and intent of the effort will be defeated. As we have seen in the case of the #EndSARS protest, no economy will be able to bear the loss that we have seen in Lagos”, he added.
During his visit to the police command headquarters in Ikeja, Adamu said the #EndSARS protest was engineered by fake news.
He noted that the claim that SARS operatives killed a resident in Delta, which started the protest was false.
“But with the use of social media, everything went wild to the extent that Lagos picked it and it became a serious matter”, he added.
The Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, enjoined all to observe a minute silence to honour the 22 policemen who lost their lives during the unrest that followed the #EndSARS protest in the country.
The State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu urged Adamu to honour the memory of the dead policemen with a post humous special promotion.
“Our spirits are high, we are ever ready to confront the menace of lawlessness in all ramifications in the command”, he added.