ABEOKUTA– The Olu of Owode-Egba, Oba Kolawole Sowemimo has thrown his weight behind the end SARS protesters, adding that this is the time for a proper and adequate reformation of the entire Police Force.
Oba Sowemimo, who made this knows while addressing newsmen in his palace at Owode said that the bad eggs within the force are notorious of feeding fat on the innocent citizens and this must now be a thing of the past.
The monarch further stated that, “First of all, I will say, there is nothing bad in making a protest, there is nothing bad in letting people know how you feel, but we should do it in a matured and in a peaceful way. To me, I will say this, I am going to explain better, the police should stop feeding on Nigeria citizens”
He further posited that, one of the solutions of reformatory stage of the police is for the federal government, to adjust the welfare package of the officers which is expected to make life meaningful for them.
“The most important thing is the Federal Government or whoever that is in charge of the Police to just do a best police reform. The Federal Government has to increase their salary, give them a better salary, give them a very better salary, give them housing, give them good condition, so that there will be no excuse for them to be extorting people, to be taking money from people, to be killing innocent Nigerians, to be harassing people on the streets
“The government needs to take care of the Police, we respect them, we love them, we know they are working for us but you know it’s been commercialised now, when you government failed to treat them well, they will beg for money, they will beg for something
“Police officers will buy uniform for himself, will buy boots for himself, innocent Nigerians will be building police stations for them. When there is problem in police stations, innocent Nigerians will go there and buy them TVs, buy them fans, when their ceiling is leaking, Nigerian communities will be the one doing it for them, what are we talking about?
“The government needs to take care of them, all over the world police is priority, in everywhere in the whole nation, give them good housing, good cars, equipments, let them be happy, so that all these stories today, SARS today, SARS do this, SARS do that, will end
“Their conditions is very poor, they are not living good at all, take care of them and let them take care of their wives too. Organisations cannot be building shops and selling shops to innocent Nigerians, is never done” he added
The monarch said it is nuisiciating seeing number of shops almost taking over some police stations in the country, lamenting that investigation showed that many of shops are owned by wives of the policemen
The traditional explained that, it is security risk to have such shops within the territory of police station, stressing that, this is not good practice and the Nigerian government should discourage it.
“For example, look at their wives, they have organisation, police wives organisation, I don’t know how they call them, we give the police land for security purpose, that is to build police station, but the land are now being commercialized, all the police wives’ are building shops around police stations selling the shops N500,000 per shop, feeding on innocent Nigerian citizens”
