…how and why, I rejected N174million bribe from a suspect
*‘Business activities thriving, investors rushing in to create employment, Nigeria is one of the most secure countries in Africa’
*‘A stable economy in Lagos State rebounds positively on overall economy of the country’
*“Nigerians in the Diaspora should ignore negative Western media news on Nigeria. It’s not as bad as they are painting it. The way they paint it is that if you are walking on the street now, somebody will just carry you and kidnap you. It doesn’t happen like that. I know many Nigerians will be coming home for the festive period, they came last year, and they went back happy. They visited the beach, everywhere, had fun and went back, nothing happened. Once there is an isolated incident, the press is in the habit of blowing it out of proportion”-ADEGOKE
*PLUS-direct request to President Donald Trump on how to end insecurity in the nation
HE’S a well celebrated and decorated crime fighter in Africa’s most populous black nation in the world. He is very intelligent and cerebral, an expert in policing and law enforcement, respected in Nigeria, United States and Europe for his vast knowledge in operational security. AIG Adegoke Mustapha Fayoade, mni, psc was born on the 28th of October 1966. He is a native of Ila-Orangun in Ila Local Government Area of Osun State.
The soft-spoken police officer holds a Master Degree in Public Administration from the University of Lagos, Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education from Lagos State University, a Diploma in Political Science and LLB (Hons) from the National Open University of Nigeria. He was at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA.
AIG Adegoke was appointed into the Nigeria Police Force on 18th May 1992 as a Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police and has served in various capacity across the federation as he grows through the ranks. In the early part of his career, he served in Taraba, Akwa-Ibom and Abia States. He was the DPO in Ilupeju, Victoria Island, Ajao Estate and MAN Centre Police Stations in Lagos. In 2014, he was deployed as Commandant of the Police Training College Oyin-Akoko, Ondo State, after his promotion to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police. A year later he became the Area Commander at the Otta Area Command, Sango-Ota, Ogun State.
Upon promotion to the Rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in 2018, he was deployed as DC Maritime Command, Lagos and later as DC (Admin) Zone 2 Command Headquarters, Onikan, Lagos State. In January 2021, he was posted as Deputy Commissioner of Police in-charge of the elite State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) Panti, Yaba-Lagos.
AIG Adegoke, a devoted Christian with the fear of God was Commissioner of Police in-charge of Armament Force Headquarters, Abuja. With his elevation to the enviable rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police, he was posted to Zone 2 Command Onikan, Lagos comprising Lagos and Ogun State Commands as the 32nd Assistant Inspector General of Police. He was the immediate past Commissioner of Police in charge of Lagos State Police Command.
The crime fighting, community friendly and Human Right Compliant AIG attended several local and international courses which includes but not limited to: Divisional Manager’s Course, Staff College Jos (2009).
In this Exclusive Interview with the Editorial Board oof Naija Standard Newspaper Inc USA who paid him a global media visit from North America, AIG Adegoke in no-hold- session bare it all on sundry matters relating to community policing, state police, national security; integrity and request from President Donald Trump of the United States if the opportunity arise, as REPORTED BY FAVOUR BOLUWATIFE PHILIP/SOUTH WEST STRINGER, NIGERIA/Naija Standard Newspaper Inc USA
*NAIJA STANDARD: AIG Adegoke Fayoade, you’ve done well for policing in Nigeria, you’ve become a role model for law enforcement in Nigeria. Let’s take it back to history-you won the best DPO in West Africa and Africa. How did you come about that?
*AIG ADEGOKE: The award of the best DPO in Africa was given to me while I was a DPO in Ilupeju Police Station. I think that was 2007. The award was given in The Hague, Netherlands and I was there with other countries-America, India, so many other countries from all parts of the world. We presented papers and my paper was judged as one of the best. The team from India came first and I was given second. And based on the paper I presented I emerged as the best in Africa. It was a very big ceremony and it’s a very big honour for Africa. I am a two-time winner of Best Divisional Police Officer in Africa, awarded in The Hague, Netherlands, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 2007 and 2013 respectively, while I was DPO in Ilupeju and Victoria Island.
My activities in Ilupeju was what I would say community policing by excellence was-that was what I put on paper and that was what I practicalized there, because while I was at the Criminal Justice Administration at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA, we discussed so much about community policing and it’s one of the term papers I presented. When I came back from the U.S after my course, after my assignment in Osun State as ADC to the Governor, I was made a D.P.O. and I thought it necessary to practicalize, since what I learnt from the College of Criminal Justice really helped. Crime then was very high, and I discovered that the only way of bringing crime and criminal activities down in that area was to partner with the people, and there was very active partnership.
In fact, the community saw the police and still see the police as part of them. They rally round. When we have issues, they rally round. When we need credible information, they always provide it. And together with the community, we were able to bring down the rate of crime in the area. We were having every month community partnership forum where community members and police will sit down and discuss the problems of the area.
The problems were not only crime, but the problems that would give rise to crime, such as the issue of epileptic power. When people don’t have power regularly, they tend to get angry and along the line, they might even gather and want to come and attack the power station. So, we always discussed that, and we had a committee in charge of that.
Once there was any complaint about power, that committee would handle it and interface with the police and the community and make sure that that matter did not escalate into the kind of activity that would cause the disturbance of peace in the area. So, with that community effort, we were able to manage crime. And I was there as the DPO for about four years. When I was moved to another station, the community rose and said they wanted me to remain there. They went to the then IGP, MD Abubakar, as they filed complaints.
My CP then called me. IGP, MD Abubakar called me also to inquire whether I still wanted to go back to Ilupeju.
I said no, I don’t want to go back. I said let me stay where you have posted me to, let me replicate what I did in Ilupeju. So, it was a success story because we worked closely with the community and I have come to realize that without building trust, without community partnership, without collaboration, we cannot achieve greater results in policing the community.
Policing must be localized in such a way that everybody, to the least person in the community, is part of the policing efforts. Everybody should be involved so that information can flow. And once they notice that anybody in a particular community was going to be an endangered species, they should quickly alert us. And from there we would work out a strategy to make sure that we investigate that person. If we find out that he has criminal items and he was there to disturb the peace of the area, we will know how to get him out of the area so that the area would have relative peace.
*NAIJA STANDARD: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria, recently wrote a letter to Senate President Godswill Akpabio and said that he wants them to pass a bill on community policing as state police. So, from your experience in community policing, it is very clear that you are a pacesetter when it comes to that, as a leader, a vanguard of community policing based on your training abroad and worldwide. How do you think the police all over Nigeria-just like in America where you traveled to, where you lived, you realize that each state with their own state police, community policing in each state; how best and how fast can policemen be able to adapt community policing in various states in Nigeria whereby they will be able to curb crime?
*AIG ADEGOKE: Yes, I think already the president’s policy structure is strictly based on community policing. Now, for example, from the recruitment, most of the officers recruited are posted to their locality, where they come from.
That is for them to understand the fact that they are from this locality, and they must have a better understanding of the crime, and they must be able to work with the community to make sure that they stem the tide of crime down. Already the localization of policing is already in place. And, like I said, once we are able to localize police and we have policemen from the same region where they are policing, it will be very, very easy in terms of language, in terms of culture, in terms of interaction, in terms of building trust.
If you are from a particular community and you are posted there to police the area, you should be able to create a good relationship, you should be able to build trust, you should be able to police with sincerity, so that the community members will trust you and say, yes, our policeman is there, let’s go to him, we have his phone number, let us give it to him. And once they come and give that information to him, they believe in their man that he is going to act on it and that problem will be solved. So, already localizing policing, bringing policing closer to the grassroots is already in place. And I know as time goes on, we will get better at it, and our communities will become very safe and secure.
*NAIJA STANDARD: Is there a way we can have more of undercovers, intelligence officers, infiltrating those communities to proactively alert the central command or the policing command structure so that we could stop the issue of security extremism?
*AIG ADEGOKE: We have undercovers already. They are working. And from undercovers you get some of this credible intelligence that is helping us to nip most of these crimes in the bud.
You see, it’s just that there is no way we can stop isolated incidents from taking place. I must tell you a lot would have happened, you know, for the fact that we are intercepting most of these things from our undercovers or from our intelligence department, intercepting them and we nip most of them. Once we nip them in the bud and you don’t hear it, nobody will know anything because we have not allowed it to occur, you understand me, and that is what we always ensure we do, to make sure that we don’t allow it to occur.
Once an incident happens, it creates fear. The fear of crime is there. It has a kind of rippling effect.
Take for example, somebody is kidnapped on the streets here and the person is taken. By the time the news goes round, everybody within that community will be scared.
They will say there are kidnappers around. Maybe somebody wants to go to work, due to that phobia, he won’t go to work.
Maybe he has some investment to carry out or some business to attend to that day worth millions. That day is gone. So, what we do is that we listen to our undercover, we listen to our intelligence department.
We gather credible reports, credible information, and this information will be acted upon swiftly. When we act upon it, we arrest criminals, get them investigated, and get them prosecuted. These things don’t get to the public side, since we would have solved the problem.
Whereas the one that occurs that we cannot intercept beforehand is the one that blows up. And when it’s blown up, it creates so much fear in the minds of the people.
But as much as we can, we are doing a lot, a lot, to not allow these issues to even take place at all.
*NAIJA STANDARD: You’re a former Commissioner of Police, CPO of Lagos State. What are some of the evergreen moments, some of the high points of your achievement there as the CPO of Lagos State?
*AIG ADEGOKE: As CPO of Lagos State, my, honestly, my evergreen moment, what I want to say is that even before coming to become CPO of Lagos State, I was aware of the challenges. The moment I came in, I faced the challenges ready. The evergreen moment that I want to remember was when this human rights group, you see, had a 10-day, is it 10-day riot? 10-day riot, yeah. 10-day end bad governance by the group. This group, this human rights group and other groups combined. That was my greatest, that was my high point. That was moment of my high point, because there was that palpable fear in the minds of all Nigerians that this was going to be another riot, going to be another very chaotic situation, that for a long period they didn’t know whether they were going to go to work or attend to their personal needs.
There were palpable fears everywhere all over the country, and Lagos is the epicenter of everything, being the economic hub.
And once anything wants to happen, once it starts in Lagos, it starts blowing like wildfire to other parts of the country. Yeah, right.
What I did was sit down and work out a strategy, and the strategy worked. And we were able to sensitize the people, talk to the people and tell them the disadvantages of coming out and causing chaos and destroying the peace of the area. And I told them, I reminded them of the EndSARS issue, the kind of havoc it caused, the kind of destruction, the loss of life and all that.
We were able to do that, sensitize them not to be part of this. And with the support of the governor of Lagos State, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, we have a good listening government in Lagos State-with his support, in terms of logistics, in terms of everything, we were able to come out with a policy that the protesters would be restricted to a particular area, where there were no movement. We restricted the protesters to Ojota, and we were able to manage them there.
And by restricting them to Ojota, it made us focus attention on a particular place. That was not to say we have not spread our dragnet all over, we spread our dragnet, our men were everywhere, at all the flashpoints that we know. We were able to confine their leaders to a particular area that really helped us.
That was how we were able to manage that riot, that situation that spanned for about 10 days, without even one canister of tear gas fired.
*NAIJA STANDARD: As a man of virtue, a man of character, a man of integrity, a man of honesty, in police in Nigeria and West Africa, we know that some time ago, a suspect brought you, let’s say 174 million Naira, and it was written that it was rejected by you. What is it, what prompted you to take that kind of standout position, you know, in Nigeria as it were? What led you to do that kind of thing?
*AIG ADEGOKE: What led me to do that was to tell the whole world that the police can be very transparent. The police can be very sincere in the course of their duties, the police can also shun corruption, graft and other dishonest activities that have been bringing negative image to the force and make a difference. And I looked at the young man, how could you involve yourself in this kind of thing?
He turned out to be a very intelligent young man. I think he has a BSc. in Mechanical Engineering, and he was working in one of the companies. The story he told was that he felt that he was not doing enough to make ends meet, that he could not achieve enough by working in this company and earning that kind of amount that he could use his brain to do something else. And he went into it, into this internet fraud, and was scamming people, making money around here.
He confessed that he never knew that police could reject such an amount of money, he never knew that police could be so transparent as that. That gave a ray of hope to the country. He said he never knew this kind of policeman existed, and if police could work like this, then there is hope for the country.
And we were able to, I mean, attain that standard, and let other youths know that this is not the way to make money. That way of making money is giving a negative, bad image to the country. We know how we are treated any time we are traveling, any time we get to the airport people will come to us and say, ah, these are Nigerians, and all of that.
They had that negative thing in their mind that the country is made up of fraudsters. With that incident, we were able to at least let the youths know that that was not the way to go about making money.
*NAIJA STANDARD: As the head of this Zone 2 Command, Lagos and Ogun State, what lasting legacy would you like to be remembered for, as a police officer, and what are your aspirations in the Nigerian police?
*AIG ADEGOKE: Well, my legacy, like any other AIGs, is to make sure that peace, absolute peace reigns, and which we have been enjoying in Lagos and Ogun State.
Without mincing words, I can proudly say Lagos and Ogun are the most peaceful parts of the country. Business activities are thriving very well here. Investors are coming in, and the governor, the government of Lagos State, and especially Ogun State are doing very well.
In Ogun State, industries are springing up, and when industries start springing up in that manner, it means employment opportunities will be greater, we will be able to reduce unemployment, and by reducing unemployment, we are reducing poverty. So, in a situation where you have an environment of peace and security, business will thrive, and standard of living will really improve, and poverty will be reduced. And that is what we have been able to achieve in Lagos, and my prayer is that this trend will continue. And on the economy, as the economy of Lagos State is stable, life will improve and get better; it will have a kind of positive effect on the total overall economy of the country, and the country will be better too.
*NAIJA STANDARD: There are millions of Nigerians in diaspora all over the world. They want to come home, but they are afraid, because of the negative news on CNN, international media. We are countering them in Texas, America, that no, it is not so in Nigeria. The lies they are telling, the propaganda, are all lies. So, what is your message to those Nigerians who are afraid? Many of them want to come and invest, and they are afraid to come home because of the negative news of the foreign press, which we are countering in North America
*AIG ADEGOKE: Nigerians in the Diaspora should ignore such negativity. It’s not as bad as they are painting it. The way they paint it is that if you are walking on the street now, somebody will just carry you and kidnap you.
It’s not like that; it doesn’t happen like that. I know many Nigerians will be coming home for the festive period, they came last year, and they went back happy. It was hitch free, they went to the beach, they went everywhere, they had fun and they went back, nothing happened.
You see that news they are hearing are isolated cases, and it’s not like that, it doesn’t happen often. It’s just that once there is an incident, the press will blow it in a manner as if this is what happens every day. I think I believe the country is very safe and secure.
Nigeria is one of the most secure countries in Africa, and my advice to them is they should come. There are opportunities here, the population is large, over 60% of youths make up the Nigerian population. Business turnover is very high, and there is opportunity to do business and make profit quickly.
I think they should come, the security is not as bad as they think, Nigeria is very secure. And the police and other security agents are always ready, willing to provide all the necessary security and support they need, anytime they come.
*NAIJA STANDARD: Finally, if you have been invited by President Donald Trump of the United States to Pennsylvania Avenue White House, for instance, and President Trump asked you-what are the requests for modern equipment or tools, techniques, you think the Nigerian police need to move to the next level, what would you tell him?
*AIG ADEGOKE: We need modern equipment. You know crime has gone technological now, it has gone digital. We need modern technology, modern equipment that will assist us in intercepting crime without even leaving the office.
The equipment that we can use in tracking criminals, hoodlums, equipment that we can use and say, okay, this incident that happened in so-and-so place, this is where the suspects are. Tracking equipment, drones, and other technology-inclined equipment that can help us to detect crime without much hassle. That’s what we need.
And we’re talking of forests-hoodlums, bandits hiding in forests. It’s not difficult as far as I know. With modern technology, we know where they are and we know what to do to get them out of the place.
So that’s what we need. Modern equipment, equipment that we use to predict where criminals are emanating from. And modern equipment that will direct us or show us the path of predicting crime and predicting that crime took place in so-and-so place.
Predictive equipment, drones, modern equipment for detecting cybercrime, and other technology-inclined equipment that will help us to detect, investigate, and prosecute the offenders.
*NAIJA STANDARD: I’d like to end the exclusive global interview with you right now. But my mind has turned to something. You look very young. You don’t look stressed. You’ve achieved a lot. Yet you’re looking so trendy and young. Where do you draw inspiration from? And why are you looking so trendy and very young, capable, active, and agile? Despite the enormous achievement, accomplishment you have made for decades. What is the secret? What’s going on?
*AIG ADEGOKE: Well, I want to give glory to God that I’m looking fit and agile and alive. It’s the grace of God. Secondly, I also want to say that when I enlisted in this police job, what came to my mind was no other thing than to work and serve the people. Serve the people selflessly.
Serve the people diligently. Serve the people and solve problems without attaching any condition to people. And that’s what I’ve been doing since I enlisted in the force. I’ve solved many problems. I’ve not placed any condition before anybody that you must do this before I do this. I’ve never done that.
And I’ve worked with the fear of God. The fear of God-that’s what I used to tell my people-be sincere, be faithful, be respectful, be objective in everything. Always look at the facts of every matter.
Don’t allow anything, whether tribes, ethnic groups, or language to influence you in taking a decision. Be very fair. And once you are fair, both parties will know you are telling the truth.
The moment you are becoming unfair, it will be obvious that this man is taking sides. So be fair, be transparent. And when matters come before you, just bear in mind that this is a problem before you.
Pray to God to give you the wisdom to solve that problem, so that parties, after they must have listened to you, will be happy when they leave. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past, for over 30 years that I joined the police.
*NAIJA STANDARD: It is so good speaking with you and Merry Christmas
*AIG ADEGOKE: Merry Christmas to you too. Thank you very much.
DONATE TO HELP BUILD A SPECIAL APPS FOR JOURNALISTS AGAINST LIVER ELEVATION & KIDNEY FAILURE:
CERTAINLY, Good journalism costs a lot of money. Without doubt, only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government. We are ready to hold every corrupt government accountable to the citizens. To continually enjoy free access to the best investigative journalism in Nigeria, we are requesting of you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavor.”
By contributing to NAIJA STANDARD NEWSPAPER, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all without fear or favor.
Your donation is voluntary — please decide how much and how often you want to give.
FOR OFFLINE OR ANONYMOUS DONATION ON THIS PROJECT OR HELP COVER COST FOR SERIES OF UNDERCOVER REPORTING IN INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM, DO PAY DIRECTLY FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD TO: NIGERIA BANK NAME-MONIEPOINT *BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER: 7076577445
Feel free to send us an email: letters@nigeriastandardnewspaper.com or call us directly at +2347076577445 (Nigeria) or WhatsApp American Roaming Mobile Number: +16825834890 (Chat messages only available)
donation
