CP Kimo used the opportunity to call on traditional rulers and other stakeholders to avoid taking the law into their hands but to report unwholesome activities of herdsmen and other criminal elements to security agencies.
The Commissioner of Police urged participants at the meeting, which held at the Police Officers’ Mess on Forces Avenue in Port Harcourt to take the message home and sensitize their people.
Responding on behalf of other traditional rulers, the Chairman of the Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers, King Dandison Jaja, criticized the police over the handling of suspected criminals.
King Dandison Jaja suggested the enforcement of community police to check the excesses of herdsmen and other security threats at the grassroots.
He said, “the perpetrators of these violence we are witnessing in the state are sometimes released by the Police without the courtesy of informing the traditional ruler about the release. And the suspect comes back to haunt the traditional ruler. This is the kind of thing I experience and it is very bad.”
The Caretaker Chairman of Port Harcourt City Local Government council, Sunny Ejiekwu who spoke on behalf of other local government caretaker chairmen, also expressed concern about how the identity of police informants were usually leaked to criminals.
The Chairman of Farmers Association in Rivers State suggested that herdsmen should always make community leaders know about their presence, while Usman Muhammad who spoke on behalf of the herdsmen, promised that they would abide by established laws to ensure peace in their host communities.
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