Lagos governor tasks Police to review strategy as crime rate increases

Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Saturday urged the state Police Command to step up surveillance and come up with new strategies to tackle the wave of criminal activities in the state.

Ambode spoke in Lagos at the closing session of the 4-day Leadership Retreat for the State Executive Council, Permanent Secretaries and some heads of Parastatals.

He urged the police to improve on their mode of operations to ensure the safety of lives and property in the state.

He, however, said that the resources ploughed into securing the state must reflect in the reduction of criminal activities.

“We’re not yet where we want to be. We have only just 33, 000 policemen in Lagos for a population of over 20 million. Again, we don’t have control over these police officers.

“We need to see some things change, there has to be some form of paradigm shift, we want to see our police officers patrol in convoy between 12 midnight and 4:00am.

“There should be presence; we want to show presence, security agencies must also show presence.

"We need to enforce, we want to see patrol vehicles moving, we don’t want to see stationery policemen, they don’t have to stay in the vehicle, we want to see something different from what it used to be in the past.

"We will spend money to support the Police because if the state is safe, the economy will thrive," he said.

Ambode charged participants to take the lessons learnt from the retreat and make a commitment to implement them in their various ministries, departments and agencies, to better the lot of the people.

He said the resolutions reached at the retreat would be brought before the weekly State Executive Council meeting to ensure that they were implemented to the letter.

“Let us see ourselves as a team, let us own our business, show presence, speak out, go out there and win for Lagos State, " he said.

The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Steve Ayorinde, who read the resolutions reached at the retreat, said participants, agreed that the Police in conjunction with the state government would come up with a holistic and joint approach to ensure security.

“Participants agreed to proffer immediate, short and long term solutions toward unlocking traffic gridlock on major roads, highways and streets in Lagos.

"They also agreed on the need to deploy appropriate cutting edge technologies to improve revenue generation," Ayorinde said.

He said participants urged residents to embrace voluntary compliance to government policies, laws and regulations.

“Participants pledged to support the commitment of government to humane and civilised approach to public service delivery and enforcement of laws in the state," Ayorinde said.