Let Us Work Together for A Safer Edo, CP Betty Otimenyin Appeals to Residents

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The new Commissioner of Police, Edo State Command, Betty Enekpen Otimenyin, on Wednesday stated that her mission in the state is to ensure a safe and peaceful environment where everyone would be happy, and businesses and investments would thrive.

She also assured that issues relating to rape and defilement would not be swept under the carpet. She promised to ensure that the department of the police that handles such cases gives justice to all victims.

Otimenyin, who is the first female commissioner of police in the state, therefore appealed to residents to cooperate with the Police Force to check cases of violent crimes like kidnapping, farmers/herders’ clashes, cultism and others by making information available to the police at all times.

She reminded the people that with the new law on cultism and kidnapping in the state, withholding information from the police could be counterproductive. She therefore urged everyone to join hands with the police to police the state so as to build a safer environment for all.

Speaking when she paid a courtesy call on the state Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (NUJ) where she was received by the leadership of the Union led by the chairman, Festus Alenkhe, Otimenyin expressed disgust at incidents of rape and defilement.

According to her, “If the person is not just being animalistic, what will attract an adult to a child? You have a child at home, you have a baby at home, what are you seeing, what will somebody be seeing in a child if he is not having psychiatric issues?

“What amazes me is that some people come as a body, and they will be protecting not the victims, but the violators and one begins to imagine whether they were once violators themselves? Is that why they are protecting their kind? Because a sane human being will not protect a violator but rather the victim. Will such persons be happy if their child is violated in that manner? Or are they saying that they can allow their own daughters to be defiled, or you allow your own wife to be raped. We will continue to work on this because I have sympathy for victims.”

Stating what she hopes to achieve, CP Otimenyin said “The essence of our coming to Edo State is to ensure that we make the state a safe environment. We want to ensure that every one of us who come from Edo State or are visitors in the state when they come in, they will be happy.

“We want to build an environment that will be friendly, an environment where businesses can thrive, where people can live peacefully, where tourism that the state is known for can thrive, where your businesses can work, where those in the Diaspora can come home and be sure that they can invest.

“We want to build an environment where everybody will be safe. That is why we say, ‘wherever you are, if you see something, you say something’. That means, you give the police information, because, with information, the police will be able to work”.

Emphasising the need for everyone to know his or her neighbours to help check criminal activities like armed robbery and cultism, she said, “We want you to know that you should know your neighbours, it is very important. Now that we have a law on kidnapping and cultism that has been domesticated, it simply shows that if you give your house to such people, your house will be brought down.

“So, know who you are around, know who your friend is, know who you relate with, know your neighbours, know everything around you, be your brother’s keeper, especially those around you.

“Tell us something and we will do something. When you see anything, we want to do a collective work, policing is about everybody, it is you and me, get involved in it. This is another phase of policing where we are all partners. We are all together, we have things at stake.

“What you sow is what you will reap, if you watch a criminal operate and you didn’t talk about it, how are you sure you will not be the next victim? That is why we are saying, when you see something, say something.”

Responding, the Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Festus Alenkhe, assured the CP of a mutual working relationship with the State Police Command.