By Ola Fadoju
The Nigerian Police Force has reacted to a trending video where some individuals grievously assaulted a police officer by dragging his loaded AK 47 rifle.
Consequently, the Force had restated the law on serious assault enshrined in Section 256(2) of the Criminal Code Act of Southern Nigeria.
However, some media platforms deliberately misquoted it as endorsing violence by uniformed officers against members of the public.
The Force spokesman, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, stated that where a public officer acts contrary to the provision of extant laws, there are channels to report such conduct and get prompt justice, particularly in the Nigerian Police Force.
He stated further that in the extant case, the individuals resorted to self-help and assaulted the officers, attempted to snatch the officer’s firearm and in doing so breached the law.
Emphasis on this has clearly been misrepresented across media platforms as a single tweet in a thread with a mischievous caption, “No Nigeria Has the Right to Retaliate when Police Slaps You…”
The Force urges well-meaning members of the public all of whom are strategic stakeholders in policing across the country to disregard the malicious publications as the current police administration was committed to ensuring that the rights of all citizens, uniformed or not, is protected across the board.
Furthermore, the Force urges the Nigerian populace not to take the laws into their hands whenever they have unpleasant encounters with police officers.
Complaints arising from such encounters can be reported via the Police Public Relations Officers (PPROs) of the various commands, the Complaint Response Unit and via official police accounts across social media platforms.
