Tag Archives: Mount

Yuletide: AIG Warns Policemen Not To Mount Road Blocks

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Officers and men of Zone 6 Police Command have been ordered to conduct only stop and search on vehicles and not to mount road blocks on the highways at Yuletide.

Mr Abubakar Marafa, Assistant Inspector General of Police in-charge of Zone 6, Calabar, gave the directive on Wednesday during a familiarisation tour of the Cross River command.

Marafa said crime fighting was more effective through intelligence gathering and not by mounting road blocks which impede smooth flow of traffic and used to extort money from motorists.

He reiterated that mounting of road blocks by the police was illegal.

“We are in a digital era, and crime fighting has gone beyond the confines of blocking the road to collect money from drivers and also slowing movement on the road.

“Stop and Search is a more effective way of combating crime because it is based on intelligence report’’, he said.

Marafa said a lot of people would be on the road travelling to different locations during the Christmas period, hence the duty of the police was to safeguard their lives by providing them with appropriate security.

“We have to do our best to safeguard the lives of the people travelling during the Christmas period and not to slow down their movement by extorting money from them’’, he said.

He urged policemen not to act beggarly but to be courageous while confronting suspects during their stop and search operation.

Mr Jimoh Ozi-Obeh, Commissioner of Police in the state, said the command had put necessary measures in place to ensure a crime free Christmas in Calabar and also during carnival.

Credit: dailytrust

Concerns Mount Over Nigeria’s Plan To Buy Warplanes From U.S.

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Concerns are growing over the decision of the Nigerian government to purchase 12 A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft from the United States.

David Kuranga, an investment and political risk consultant, described the warplanes as “crop dusters” and advised the government against going ahead with the purchase.

Mr. Kuranga, who is the managing director of Kuranga and Associates, in the statement, said the warplanes fall below the standard of aircraft used by even the military of African countries such as Egypt and South Africa.

“In a conventional match-up or joint-task force, if Nigeria were ever asked to partner in a multi-national coalition with middle-income nations like Egypt, South Africa, Brazil, or Indonesia, the Nigerian “Air Force” equipped with the A-29 light attack fighters would be joke!” he wrote in a statement.

“They are comparatively slow, fly at lower altitudes, and are much more susceptible to anti-aircraft artillery that even rebel fighters in Mali were in possession of,” he wrote.

Mr. Kuranga also said that the warplanes are too expensive even as they are inadequate for serious military operations. He said they would constitute waste of taxpayers’ money.

“The fact that the Nigerian government is considering putting in over a 100 million dollars of state money to purchase these inadequate aircraft, as a means of upgrading Nigeria’s air defenses is a laughable! Further it is a poor investment and a waste of state resources.”

He said he found it baffling that the US authorities were seeking to block the sale of the obsolete warplanes to Nigeria when they should be thankful that the Nigerian government is relieving them of such antiquated aircraft.

He said Nigeria should aim to buy more advance warplanes that will put it at par with other militaries in the continent.

Credit: PremiumTimes