IN the last six months, the number of policemen and women that have died from attacks by terrorists and criminals in peace-time Nigeria is unprecedented, especially in the northern part of the country and the Niger Delta.
In the last two weeks, Boko Haram insurgents in Bama and Eggon killed over 45 police officers and men of the State Security Service (SSS) in Borno and Nasarawa states alone.
The Bama attacks claimed over 55 lives, including about 22 policemen, and caused the destruction of five Police, Prisons and Nigerian Army formations in the town.
On Friday, April 5, 16 policemen allegedly hired to lead the convoy of boats heading for Azuzuama in Southern Ijaw Council of Bayelsa State, were attacked by suspected militants and 11 of them died. Their bodies were recovered four days latter in the creek.
Kano, Yobe and Borno states have bore the brunt of most of the attacks, with many officers killed or injured.
The Nasarawa attack on Tuesday, May 7 led to the death of over 30 policemen and SSS operatives who were ambushed on their way to raid the armoury allegedly belonging to the Ombatse cult.
Reacting to the incident, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar, in statement signed by force deputy spokesman, Frank Mba, said: “This disturbing, condemnable and highly distressing incident, coming closely after similar ones in Bayelsa and Borno states, have thrown up new and emerging threats in the delicate task of policing our country.
“We consider the attack not just an attack on the Nigeria Police and its officers and men, but also an attack on the collective will of Nigerians to protect and preserve our dear fatherland. This, we have vowed, to put an end to.”
The IGP ordered all field commanders and special units, including Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIGs) and Commissioners of Police to “harness all resources available within their domain in ensuring that this reign of terror and lawlessness is brought to an end.”
He added: “The Nigeria Police Force, working in conjunction with all positive- minded Nigerians, will do everything within its powers to fish out and bring to book all those involved in this and other similar killings of law enforcement agents. We must put an end to this endless circle of impunity. Enough is enough”.
Last Friday, over 150 widows and orphans of the policemen and prisons officials killed in Bama by Boko Haram gunmen, grudgingly accepted a N5 million donation by Governor Kashim Shettima when he paid a condolence visit to survivors of the attack.
This happened just as wives of the slain policemen in Nasarawa barricaded the Akwanga-Abuja road, causing commuters to be stranded for over four hours.
Their grievance, according to one of them, was that the corpses of some of their husbands were still missing, while government is playing politics with the incidence.
Another widow said: “If our husbands are killed, let them return their bodies. We are more than 75 that have not seen the corpses of our husbands, as only 18 bodies have been recovered.
“So, we want to know if our husbands are dead or not. Their status must be clear to us. Our husbands were sent on national duty by the government, but are yet to return. No one would pass through this place until the bodies of our husbands are returned to us.”
It has become obvious that police officers, who are hardly well-equipped for their duties, are the softest targets of criminal attacks in the country, from available reports.
Suffice it to say that their families do not fare better once they are gone, as their death benefits and other entitlements are hardly or promptly paid. Some families are ejected from their official residential quarters soon after the death of their breadwinners.
It all boils to equipping the police and re-orientating its men and officers, particularly on strategies.
Another raging issue concerning the killing of policemen/women and indeed security agents in the line of duty, is disparity of compensation among the different agencies.
This brings to question the real worth of the life a policeman/woman, and probably security agents in general.
For example, it was reported that families of the slain policemen in Nasarawa were paid a meagre N500, 000, which was later increased to N1 million, compared to the N10 million and a house each to families of deceased officers announced by the Department of State Security Services (DSS).
This difference made it look like the policemen/women were worth less than their colleagues in sister security agencies, prompting some northern governors, led by their Chairman and Governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, to call for a correction of such disparity.
While speaking in Abuja during the peace forum and launch of the Northern Governors’ Wives Forum almanac, Aliyu insisted that families of the policemen and other security agencies killed be given equal treatment in terms of compensation and other incentives.
“It is only in Nigeria that criminals and hoodlums kill security operatives and go free. We want equal treatment for the families of all the policemen and the SSS.
“There is no justification anywhere why there should be disparity in the payment of compensation to the families of the officers killed.
“There is no country in the world where a criminal can kill a police or any security operative and go free, no matter how connected they might be. But here in Nigeria, it happens,” he lamented.
At a ceremony not quite long ago, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Dikko Abubakar, said N8.5 million worth of insurance was paid to 17 dependents of police officers who died in active service in Zone Six.
The IGP, represented by then Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, Mohammed Indabawa, said in Port Harcourt while distributing the cheques to beneficiaries, that each beneficiary received N500, 000 under the police insurance scheme.
He disclosed that out of the officers who died, four were from Rivers, six from Akwa Ibom, one from Cross River and six from Bayelsa commands.
As the police and other security authorities try to unravel the circumstances surrounding the incessant killing of their officers in the line of duty and put an end to such avoidable deaths, it is instructive that the morale of their living colleagues be boosted by adequately equipping them and reviewing their compensation schemes.
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