Forty-eighty hours after the launch of Operation Flush by the Lagos State Police Command, the Force has raised dark spots and arrested 110 suspected criminals.
The suspects were apprehended in various parts of the state, according to authorities, and they recovered weapons, hard drugs, and other stuff.
Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, Idowu Owohunwa, who spoke during a chat with journalists at Sir Mike Okiro Press Centre, GRA, Ikeja, said few hours after the launch of ‘Operation Flush’ policemen from the command went into action; raided dark spots and arrested 110 suspects, recovered hard drugs, pistol and other criminal items. Out of the number, 80 suspects were arrested at the Orile Iganmu axis, while 31 others were picked by the Lagos State Task Force from other places, at Oshodi, Ilupeju, and Mushin, lurking in the dark around garages and bus stops, waiting for unsuspecting Lagosians to prey on. We are dealing with the issue of traffic robbery. It will soon be over.
“Now, coming to policing, up till this morning, I think I read in a newspaper about the bridge at Orile, and the truth is that the current tension is linked to that bridge because it is happening during the time, and I heard the police were not just prompt.
So, naturally, it elicited so much tragedy, yesterday, that we held a meeting and launched the Operation Flush; as of last night, so many divisions have undertaken raids of black spots.
“The Orile division alone arrested 88 suspects last night, who recovered hard drugs. One other division recovered an English pistol. We will be giving you the updates, so, for the Orile, we have taken some actions, if you pass through, you’ll see it. And we are going to have permanent police deployment along that stretch. But it didn’t stop there; we went further to visit the local government chairman. The truth is that the place isn’t under construction. So, I think the best way to manage it is to have palliatives and, then, there’ll be some raids to complement it. But rest assured, robbery at the Orile axis is gone”.
In another development, the CP described gender based violence, sexual abuse, and family related violence as one of the highest crimes in the state, adding that, unfortunately, the crimes were not fully reported because of sociocultural factors, but the police were trying to attend to the vices.
“You are all aware that gender based violence is, also, my passion, and I am sure some of you are already aware of the actions I have taken in order to really upscale the capacity of our gender unit. If you’re not, what I’ve done on my assumption of office here was to relocate our gender unit from the command to the former Inspector-General of Police Rapid Response Team (IRT).
“At the moment, we are working with the office of the First Lady in Ogun State and some NGOs to remodel and modernise the facility. By the time we are done with that facility, we will have hostel facilities for even some complainants, because we were told, in developing this concept, the ward will contain about 40 of them. I developed this for us, then they drew our attention to the fact that some victims of domestic violence, in the reports, might be scared of going back to that same place, to avoid possible anger or assault by their spouses. So, we are now creating hostels for them within the few days it will take to resolve the issues.
“There’ll be case management offices, there’ll be physio-social support units and a legal unit. So it’s going to be of national standard, if not global standard; some NGOs are seeing to it. “I will try within my leadership capabilities, bit by bit, we can get there. The establishment of the Complaint Response Unit is for people to call in and report any human rights violation”.