The Nigeria Police Force’s statement on Wednesday has shed light on a troubling info, where a significant number of reported kidnappings in the country were either falsely reported or deliberately engineered.
Muyiwa Adejobi, the Force Public Relations Officer, delivered this statement while presenting the gold medal to the victor of the 14th edition of the Biennial Police Games, known as “Oluyole 2024,” which took place at Ilaji Resorts Hotel in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
Adejobi clarified that the security situation in Nigeria isn’t as dire as many perceive it to be, highlighting that much of the public perception is shaped by recycled and regurgitated content on social media platforms.
Adejobi said, “Most kidnapping incidents are fake or stage-managed. When people shout that they are being kidnapped, it is not all these incidents are real. Many people fake kidnapping to get money from their people, while some do that to collect ransom from their families.
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“So, from us, the situation is not as bad as people read it on social media. We have the information, we have the data. Though, we have isolated cases, we arrest them on a regular basis, we have taken the fight to their camps, we neutralized many of them, we arrest them and charged them to court.
“Most videos and news of insecurity happening in Nigerian online are old news, hardly will any conventional media house publish or broadcast them the way they are on social media.
“If you want to analyse kidnapping, how many cases do we have in Oyo? How many do we have as per geo political zone? So, if you want to analyse security situations, you don’t do that with mere speculations or phycological projections.
“We collate information and data of incidents, we are the ones to tell you if security situation is worrisome or not, and with what we have on ground, security situation in Nigeria is not worrisome.”
He stressed the necessity for Nigerians to aid the police and other security entities in combating insecurity, underscoring the crucial role of public vigilance in alerting authorities for timely responses to security threats.
CP Patric Athairu, in his comments as the NPF Director of Sports, emphasized the importance of talent discovery within the game, stating that it has been successful in uncovering many promising new talents.
“We are collating number of talents discovered so far so as to introduce them to the federation for their necessary support. We might need to bring some of them out of where they are serving to give them opportunity to focus more on discovering their talents.
He stated that they were meeting with the Federation chairman because of the new talents discovered, which were subject to verification. He mentioned that they were waiting for records from the federation and would make them available as soon as possible.
He announced that, as the medal stands, Zone two was leading at the medals table, having won about 17 golds and over 35 medals, followed by the Force Headquarters with 15 golds and 34 medals as of that afternoon (Wednesday).