By 
The emerging culture of questioning actions taken by the authorities of the Nigeria Police Force on their erring staff is fast drawing the attention of the public.
Worthy of note are the cases of Inspector Richard Gele who was caught on viral video justifying extortion of members of the public and Corporal Opeyemi Kadiri who forcefully took a commuter’s handset and started searching through his messages.
On July 30, 2022 Inspector Gele was dismissed for professional misconducts by openly justifying why police could extort motorists and other road users. He did not know that someone recorded him while acting mischievously.
On August 12, 2022 Corporal Opeyemi Kadiri with Force No.509745 attached to Dolphin Divisional Police Headquarters of Lagos Police Command was dismissed for gross misconduct, disobedience to lawful order and assault on a member of the public as captured in a viral video on August 3, 2022.
While the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali and his top management team did not find such behaviors funny and could not hesitate to squarely address same to serve as deterrent to other police personnel, some members of the public including a notable celebrity condemned the decision to dismiss the erring officers from the services of the Nigeria Police Force.
Such contenders would have preferred a lesser punishment than outright dismissal for reasons best known to them. Just two days ago, a presidential candidate in the 2023 was quoted in the media as condemning police authorities for suspending two female police personnel who were trending on social media Tik Toks.
While Security Reporters does not question the rights of persons to challenge the actions or inactions of our public institutions or security agencies, we hasten to suggest that such interventionists should primarily take cognisance of extant law or rules relating to conditions of service before drawing conclusion.
For all we know, there is certainly no sane employer who does not provide conditions of service to his employees no matter how small the business may be. The same applies to all government institutions and security agencies.
Regrettably, we live in a clime where people would brazenly breach their service rules with the flimsy excuse of fighting for certain rights. Statutorily, rights of persons as employees in any employment situation have procedure to be followed while pursuing same. For instance, while a serving police is rightly entitled to his salary and allowances, he does not have right to extort innocent citizens in other to augment the salary and allowances which he considers inadequate like in the case of Inspector Richard Gele.
We are therefore saying that what the police authorities did by way of dismissing the erring officers was justified as there is no better way of sanitizing a Police Force that has so much bad image as portrayed by the likes of Gele and Kadiri.
While we appreciate the concern of those who considered the dismissal of the two police personnel as being too harsh, we need remind them that the current Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali had in the past since assumed office, cautioned and warned against unprofessional conducts likely to further dent the already bad image of the Force.
If the IGP could hastily hand over a well celebrated Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari to the authorities of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for reportedly involving in drug deal, every discerning Nigerian should then know that the IGP could not compromise his vision and mission for a better police force.
We would therefore appeal to members of the public to give the IGP the needed support in his effort to bring total sanity to the Nigeria Police Force. It is a difficult task to achieve but certainly, we must start from somewhere.
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