Argument in favour of state police took a huge blow in Ilorin, Kwara State, Friday, after over 1000 police constabulary protested nonpayment of entitlements, prompting the state commissioner of police, Tuesday Asayomo, to tactfully leave the buck at the desk of AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, governor of the state.
The state police command was forced on Saturday to respond to viral footages of the constabularies protests around government house dissociating itself from the problem.
Asayomo, responding via a press release signed by Okasanmi Ajayi, spokesman for the state police command, said it needed to make clarification on the matter as many online news platforms (Truthlive.net not inclusive), reported the matter as default in payment by the police authorities.
“For purposes of clarification, the characters seen in the video are police special constabularies recruited to complement the operation of community policing.
” It is important to state that the concept of community policing and recruitment of special constabularies is voluntary in nature, meaning they are not on monthly renumeration like the conventional policemen.
“This much the constabularies were briefed before taken up the job, besides, the job is not full time job.
“Due to the complaints of the constabularies regarding non payment of stipends by the state government, the constabularies were invited for a meeting by the state government on ways by which their complains could be looked into, hence their invite to the government house today.
“It was surprising that the same set of constabularies after the meeting with agents of the state government could go online with a video claiming that the government was owing them salaries for a year,” the police command official reponse read.
The police hierarchy had created the police constabulary in response to upsurge in insecurity and the need to assuage the clamour for a more localised police system, encapsulated with the agitations for state police.
The plight of the constabularies in Ilorin may well preview what the fate of state owned police officers in future.