The Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, Mr. Tunde Ogunsakin, on Wednesday said that the spate of kidnapping in the state has reduced and attributed the feat to the strategy put in place by the State Police Command.
Ogunsakin, who made this known at a news briefing in Port Harcourt, said most of the kidnappers have either been “arrested or dispatched’’ in the process of exchanging fire with the police.
“Kidnapping has gone down, I can tell you; it has really gone down,’’ he said.
He added that the kidnappers had their hideout and detention camps at the waterfronts where they kept their victims and would often come into the town, pick their victims and take them to their waterfront hideouts.
He said after the police had studied the criminals’ strategy, it mapped out its own counter- strategy to check their activities.
According to him, the several waterfronts are now adequately policed so much so that the gang has no access to their hideouts while conveying their victims.
He said after “going round and round with their victims, the kidnappers are forced to abandon the victims’’.
The commissioner cited an instance where kidnappers were forced to drop a victim in an underground water tank in Bori in Khana Local Government Area.
He advised the public against payment of ransom for the release of their relations, saying it made the police work difficult.
Ogunsakin said that the ransom encouraged the criminals to continue with the illegal business since it yielded money for them.
He said the command had mopped up arms and ammunitions, especially those of AK47 riffles.
“Almost every day, we recover arms and ammunition, especially AK47. We are aware that arms are in the wrong hands. We are determined and desirous to make sure that we mop up as much arms and ammunition as possible because it is dangerous for arms to be in wrong hands,’’ he said.
The commissioner said that there were indications that militancy was about to resurface in the state, and assured that the command was equal to the task.
“We are facing criminality too, in the sense of cultism, the militants are trying to come out, we will deal with them . We will continue to improve on our strategy to make sure that anywhere we find them, we get them,’’ Ogunsakin said.
