ABUJA—Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi (SAN) yesterday rose in defence of the Police Force over their inability to track down killers of former Justice Minister, Chief Bola Ige (SAN), three years after he was gunned down in his bedroom, saying policemen were no magicians. According to him, instead of blaming the police, Nigerians should be blamed because they were in the habit of shielding perpetrators of heinous crimes living among them from arrest and prosecution.
Olujinmi also defended, yesterday, in Abuja, the position of the Federal Government on the controversial Trade Union Amendment Bill about to be passed by the National Assembly, the arrest of Okija priests and their workers, appointment of the Director-General of the Law School, respect for court order and the sitting of election petition tribunals one year after polls.
The occasion was the Federal Ministry of Justice’s National Ministerial Press Briefing, a platform created by Minister of Information, Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu for each federal ministry to give a periodic account to the electorate on the progress being made in implementing the mandates given to the government.
Responding to a question on how he felt about the inability of the nation’s policemen to arrest the murderers of late Chief Bola Ige about three years after he was gunned down in his bedroom in Ibadan, Chief Olujinmi said: “I can assure you that this constitutes a serious concern to the Federal Government. When crimes are committed, you must be able to detect the perpetrators. When you cannot, it is like an encouragement to the criminals to commit more crime. They are likely to say, oh, it is like the state crime detection mechanism is defective. And this is not good.
“Having said that, it is necessary to point out that we Nigerians are not helping the situation. These criminals live among us. Nigerians know them. They know where they live. But they are not ready to give them up to the police. “And if you don’t help the police with information, then you are not assisting crime detection and the police. And mind you, police are no magicians to detect crimes without information. They are neither soothsayers. “I am therefore appealing to everybody, all Nigerians, to help the police so that they can carry out their crime detection role creditably well. “But that is not to say that the need for reform in the Nigeria Police Force shall not be attended to,” he said.
Chief Olujinmi who addressed many other topical issues also explained that the controversial Trade Union Amendment Bill by the Federal Government was never a target at the Nigeria Labour Congress but an attempt to democratize trade union and comply with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution. According to him, “what we are trying to do now is that we should allow the unions in the country the freedom to decide which of the federations they want to belong to instead of what obtains under the Trade Union Act enacted in 1978 by the military providing that NLC shall be the only central labour organisation which takes away my right and yours to belong to a union we want.
” On the raiding of the Okija shrine, he said the government has the responsibility to protect lives and that what the government was trying to do was not in any way objectionable. “What is wrong has to be determined in relation to what the law has provided. The law of the land is not against idol worship or what you call traditional religion.
