By Ike Uchechukwu, Vanguard News Nigeria
The Cross River Police Command on Friday warned that it will no longer condone any form of street protest by any group in the State, stressing that a lot of strange elements were waiting to leverage on such avenues to carry out mayhem.
The Commissioner of Police, CP Sikiru Akande gave the warning while parading a native doctor and 108 other suspects, arrested by his team across the State within the period under review.
CP Akande while briefing newsmen said that never again would the #EndSARS incident happen again as they ready to deal ruthlessly with any criminal element in any guise.
His words: “We are working in line with the directives of President Buhari through the Inspector General of Police, Alkali Baba to make sure we maintain the relative peace that is Cross River.
“We are going all out against enemies of the State who may want to cause trouble and this time, we are taking the fight to them as we are smoking them out if thier various hide out across the State and we are not resting on our oars.
“I want to use this medium to tell the public that protest is not the best way to make their anger known. At this period in our country, no more street protests will be allowed in any part of the State, because we are not ignorant of the fact that we now have a lot of infiltrators who can readily hijack such protests.
“So we are using this medium to ban all street protest, because groups like ESN, BHM, ISWAP, BH can easily use it as a platform to cause mayhem.
“We have also been able to establish the fact that more than 90% of those we have been apprehending are not from Cross River, so the people of the State must rise and protect the land that God has given to them.
“Any person or group who may want to disturb the relative peace in the State will be responded to with ruthless force within the ambit of the law, as we will never fold our hand and watch criminal element destroy our Commonwealth,” he warned.
The suspects paraded for sundry crimes including armed robbery, illegal possession of firearms, attempted arson amongst others.
Vanguard News Nigeria learned that 35 suspected gangsters were also arrested during an initiation rite at a hotel in Bakassi Local Government Area including a native doctor who prepares “criminal charms” for them, while 14 females were part of those arrested as fresh initiates of the secret cult.
Akande further disclosed that they are changing tactics by ensuring they have a full database of these suspects so that if anything happens in a particular location they know who to go after.
He called on Cross Riverians and other well spirited individuals resident in the State to join hands with the Police in the fight against crime and its drastic reduction to the barest minimum.