The Nigeria Police Force said it has received 498 cases of professional misconduct against its personnel across the country from January to March. The Head, Public Complaints Rapid Response Unit, NPF, Abayomi Shogunle, disclosed this in a report, on Thursday, in Abuja.

Shogunle said the number of cases of misconduct against the police decreased by 52.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the 1,054 cases recorded in the first quarter of 2016. He said the unit resolved 355 cases out of the 498 it received while 65 cases received were found to be false and unrelated with 78 cases still pending.

Shogunle said more than 10,000 phone calls were received from the public members during the period under review and that out of the figure, only 362 phone calls relating to the mandate of the unit were processed.

He said telephone calls topped the channels of receiving complaints with 362 cases just as 75 WhatsApp messages, 29 emails, 12 tweets, seven SMS texts, four Facebook posts and nine hard-copy letters and media publications were received during the period under review.

He said the unit also recovered N560,000 from the police in the Nyanya Division of the Federal Capital Territory Command in March, two years after the matter was reported to the unit.

Shogunle said the Lagos State Police Command topped in the number of complaints against its police officers with 90 cases, FCT 69 and Rivers 59.

He said Kwara and Ekiti police commands recorded no case during the period while Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa, Cross River and Bauchi commands recorded one case each. He said the Kebbi Command recorded its first case since the inception of the unit in 2015.

The Punch