By Rashidat Aminu
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Graphic Newspaper, Mr. Dayo Thoma, has urged the relevant authorities to put in place a special welfare program for the families of serving policemen in the country.
He made the pleas during an advocacy visit by the Integrity Forum to his office in Lokoja, Kogi state, at the weekend.
Led by the President, Blessing Ogbe, the association lamented the rate at which policemen are being violently killed and their families hunted and attacked by criminals.
According to the president, over 50 policemen have been killed in the country in the last one year while the families of many of the officers are being attacked daily. The ongoing armed conflict, insecurity, lack of state protection, and recurring humanitarian crises has further exposed Nigeria Police officers and their family to serious abuse.
One of the victims was one Inspector Tuesday Oluwasegun Osagbemi, a native of Ponyan in Kogi state, who was killed in front of his office in Ibadan, Oyo State leaving behind a wife and children.
You would recall that the Family of the immediate elder brother of the deceased who is also a police officer and presently out of the country, Mrs Oluwafunmilayo Esther Ayodele alleged threats to her life and that of her children which was reported to the Police and also published on page 10, Saturday Telegraph of 21st December, 2019 and page 6 of The Graphic Newspaper of 25th December, 2019″, she disclosed.
According to the newspapers reports, Mrs. Oluwafunmilayo Esther Ayodele, wife of a police officer, had alleged threats to her life and that of her children. Their house was burgled without anything removed and she was physically attacked with wounds on her body which almost cost her life as she is an asthma patient