The Assistant Inspector-General of Police, AIG Zone five, Benin, Shola David, has appealed to law-abiding citizens of Edo and Delta States, to go about their lawful businesses, as the police strategize to reclaim the public space within their statutory powers, to ensure the protection of life and property.
The AIG made the appeal at a meeting with the police management team of Edo and Delta States, in the face of the destruction of public and private property in the states by hoodlums.
The AIG, at the strategic meeting of the police management team at the Zone five Headquarters, said the zone is complying with the directive of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Mohammed Adamu, to reclaim the public space and to restore normalcy, in view of the destruction and violence that followed the EndSars protest, which was hijacked by hoodlums.
The AIG said the police will no longer sit back and allow public and private property to be destroyed,.
David, therefore, said that the IG had directed the police commands within the zone to immediately mobilize all police operational assets and resources to bring to an end the wanton violence, killings, looting, and destruction of public and private property by criminal elements.
The Edo State Commissioner of Police, Johnson Kokumo, while condemning the destruction of police facilities in the state, said that no casualty has been recorded, though he admitted the arrest of several persons, in connection with the burning of three police stations and several other properties.
The police warned those planning to foment trouble, which might lead to the breakdown of law and order, to have a rethink while appealing to parents and guardians to caution their children and wards to eschew crime and criminality.