The Commissioner of Police Western Ports Police Command, Mrs. Hilda Ibifuro Harrison has bemoaned the poor state of infrastructure in the Western Ports Police Command and in the entire police formations nationwide.
Harrison who was speaking on the backdrop of the present state of the Police Transit Camp in Lagos State decried the state of the station which supposed to be the pride of every Policeman working under the Command even as she described the place as a sorry sight.
According to her,” for the transit camp, it is actually a sorry sight, I agree with you. There is no electricity there; the sewage system is broken down. You see, it still boils down to our culture, our values as human beings”.
“If you go to some villages, I don’t want to mention the ones I have been to so that I do not personalize issues; you find that some persons still live in thatch houses in Nigeria. We must try to resuscitate the culture of maintenance at whatever level that we can”.
She however stated that she was making effort to get across to the authorities to ensure that light was restore to the station as according to her, electricity was key to everyone’s living adding that efforts were already on to ensure that most of the dilapidated building at the camp were repaired.
The Police boss further disclosed that although those issues were not something that could be resolved within the week, she was already working on them noting that she had written a memo to that effect to be presented to the Police authorities at a meeting that was put off recently.
“So, I am waiting for as soon as possible for the meeting to hold and I know it will hold soon and I will pass across that memo. It is in black and white there the state of that transit camp”, she stated.
Speaking on Policemen sleeping at Police stations, Mrs. Harrison opined that it was to her knowledge that the Police did not have adequate accommodation for its officers saying that the development was affecting the attitude of the officers in the discharge of their duties.
While alluding to the fact that insufficient accommodation was not peculiar to Police alone as it also affect none Police officers as well, she however decried the attitude of some Police officers who would rather stay in Lagos State to work under some dehumanizing circumstances instead of accepting transfer to other commands with more facilities.
She said, “so, we try our best, you know that the provision of Barracks is to the knowledge of everybody here, very many of the Barracks that Police Officers occupy today were built in the 60s, in the 70s and in the early 80s when the strength of Police was far way less than a hundred thousand. Now that that has more than doubled, of course, what we are experiencing is not new but efforts are ongoing to ensure that much of it is redressed and Policemen can work under better conditions and so their psychology will be changed to work more effectively and efficiently.
