Abuja – The Compliant Response Unit ( CRU) of the Nigeria Police Force on Monday said it had received over 150 telephone calls and 300 Whatsapp messages daily from members of the public against police conduct.
The Head of the CRU, Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police, ACP Abayomi Shogunle, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Shogunle, however, said that not all the calls received were complaints against the police actions.
“Some of these calls received are not even related to the duties or responsibilities of the CRU,”he said.
He said that CRU agents at the call centres only responded to messages that were complaints against police actions through registering and acknowledging the receipt of the cases.
He regretted that most of the complaints received by the unit came from the urban centres.
“We hardly get messages from the grassroots, that is why the I-G has approved that CRU posters should be translated into Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba in handbills and flyers to be distributed to the Local Government Areas in the country,”he said.
He said that this campaign would be launched before the end of October in Abuja by the I-G.
Shogunle added that the campaign would also take place in all the police commands across the country with emphasis on the rural areas.
” The interaction would involve traditional rulers, market people, schools, community leaders and religious organisations, among others,” he said.
He said that over half of the cases resolved by the unit were done within the first 24 hours within the receipt of the complaints.
“However, in some cases you will need to make some verification which will make it go beyond 24 yours,”he said.
He advised members of the public to avoid any face-off with the police.
Shogunle added that the CRU was for everybody and that one did not need to know any senior police officer before he or she could be attended to.
