Sleeping on duty: Policemen lose 11 rifles to robbers

Juliana Francis
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Umar Manko has expressed worry and shock over increasing cases of robbers snatching policemen rifles in the state. It was more worrisome that most of the rifles snatched, were snatched while the policemen were sleeping on duty.
According to a police source, more than 11 rifles have been snatched from policemen in the state within the last three months.
To check the escalating rate of rifles being snatched, Manko has ordered that police stations should henceforth stop investigating cases of snatched rifles.
Manko insisted that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad(SARS), should begin to handle investigations involving snatched police rifles.
Just recently, more three rifles were taken from policemen.
John Buhari of Mopol 20, recently lose his rifle to robbers at a warehouse in Ketu area of the state, where he was a guard.
According to Buhari, he went to relax, when robbers rushed him and collected his rifle from him.
Police authourity believed that he was sleeping on duty when robbers took his rifle, but he denied it.
He explained that he was relaxing while he was on duty when a security guard, attached to the warehouse, knocked on the door of where he was relaxing and walked in.
He claimed that the security guard opened the door and came in with somebody and both took his rifle from him.
The security guard had also been arrested. He explained that they were all sleeping on duty, when robbers attacked the warehouse. The robbers woke Buhari, demanding that he should hand over his rifle to them or they would kill him.
The robbers made away with the rifle, which had 30 rounds of ammunitions.
There was also the recent case of Corporal Tajudeen Lawal, attached to Mopol 49, Epe. The rifle was collected by robbers armed with cutlasses, while he was also sleeping. He lost his rifles to robbers at the Idimu area. The rifle had two magazines and 50 rounds of AK47 ammunitions.
It had however been discovered that Buhari is a specialist police(not regular police) from Adamawa State, who was not supposed to carry rifle.
The armourer at Mopol 20, had also been ordered by the CP, to come forward and explain to the authourity, why he issued Buhari a rifle when he should have known better.
Manko further ordered that policemen joining Mopol, should be investigated properly. He maintained that most policemen who joined Mopol are those who had committed crime and runs to Mopol to cover their crime and track.