The Public Interest Lawyers League, PILL has frowned at the killing of policemen in Nasarawa State. According to the group, in a Press Statement signed by its President, Abdul Mahmud, said; “This week the Nigeria Police Force scored a new low in its fight against the many underground militia and terror groups that have seized the soul of our Fatherland. Nothing highlights the combat inadequacies of the Force than the many effeminate ways it confronts groups that maim and kill its officers, torch police stations and cart away arms and ammunitions. From Bayelsa to Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Adamawa and Jigawa states militants and terrorists make the Force appear like a ragtag band incapable of defending itself.”
The Statement further said; “Doubtless, the gruesome killings of officers of the Force by members of the Ombatse cult are truly a new low. The ease with which the officers were ambushed and killed highlights the fact that the Nigeria Police Force is still rooted in its antiquated zombie strings’ strategy of combating enemies of the Nigerian state by mobilising officers into arenas of armed conflicts in zombie strings. Everyday armed officers are headed like chickens in a single file of siren-blazing combat vehicles into arenas of conflicts. In this day of modern policing, approaching arenas of conflicts in a manner shorn of ‘’military swarming’’ is suicidal. The Ombatse attack exposed the combat unpreparedness of the Force.”
PILL said further said that; “Officers we lose every day are our kin and kith. We can’t continue to make widows and widowers out of citizens who are married to officers of the Nigeria Police Force.We are alarmed by the ease with which forty-three officers of the Nigeria Police Force were ambushed and killed by Ombatse cultists.”
However, the group also lamented in form of questions when it asked; “Was the police operation in Nasarawa-Eggon designed and managed by the Force’s High Command? Was the operation informed by reconnaissance intelligence and how was the intelligence analysed? Was there any Operational Command Control set up to manage the operation? Were there reinforcement back-ups for the operation? Was any risk analysis undertaken by the Operational Command Control before the slain officers were mobilised?”
Concluding the group said; “Whilst we condole with the men and women of the Force that have lost their beloved friends and colleague and with the widows, children and families of the slain officers who will forever bear the agonies of grieves, we demand answers from the apparatchiks of the Force’s High Command.”
