Lagos State Police Urges Residents To Stop Reporting Crimes First On Social Media

The Lagos State Police Command has urged residents of the state not to report traffic robberies and other crimes first on social media but to the nearest police station as that will help the police forestall further occurrence. The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Joseph Offor, made the appeal on Monday, November 9. According to The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, lamented that Nigerians have the habit of reporting crimes first on the social media.
He also spoke about how some distress calls were actually blown out of proportion and advised the residents to always verify their information before causing panic. Offor added that making false reports of crime incidents on social media was a cheap blackmail against the leadership of the Nigeria Police. "People should endeavour to report every road traffic robbery to the police station so that we will know who to hold responsible. This will help us to strategise and come against those people behind the crimes. We are not denying the fact that we have a couple of traffic robberies here and there but we have arrested some of the suspects. We have also prevented some of them that were about to be committed. When somebody is a victim of a crime, he knows where to go," Offor told NAN. "If you go to a police station to report, it will help us to have the statistics of crime being committed in that area; it will also help us in our planning. It will help us in our research but when people decide to report their cases to the social media, we see it as a cheap blackmail against the leadership of the Nigeria Police. And this is worrisome because it is not helping our statistics." he added.