Posted by By BEN OKEZIE on
A visit to Bayelsa speaks volumes of him and his squad, known as the 'Anti-sea piracy patrol squad. The activities of pirates operating from the Bayelsa high sea was effectively controlled by this unassuming police officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police Nengi Jephthah.
A visit to Bayelsa speaks volumes of him and his squad, known as the 'Anti-sea piracy patrol squad. The activities of pirates operating from the Bayelsa high sea was effectively controlled by this unassuming police officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police Nengi Jephthah.
Before his appointment as the commander of the state Anti -sea piracy patrol squad, according to Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, oil installations came under serious threat, not from the legitimate agitation for equity, justice and fairness in the exploration and exploitation of oil in the Niger Delta region by youths, but from sea pirates and armed bandits.
The handicap of the police was that they had no knowledge of the numerous creeks in the area. The governor noted that a clarion call was made and the people responded with mirage of idea and support, particularly the youths who vowed to combat the menace of these sea pirates. That was how the state government established the Bayelsa Volunteers and the Anti-sea piracy squad all under this robust young police officer.
Although his name does not ring any bell, his dexterity and security agility were long noticed before he was called out last year before the high and mighty in security circles and given an award as the best crime buster of the year 2004.
Today, Mr SNOW as he was nicknamed by students of the Tai Solarin College of Education, Odogbolu in Ogun State, in 1996, can raise his head high as one of those who assisted in restoring peace to Bayelsa State.
At the age of 33years, Supol Nengi bestrides the hazardous world of sea pirates like a colossus and his conquests seem not to end . His story is an affirmation that community policing if well articulated will definitely rid the communities of all shades of hoodlums.
In the early eighties when a notorious armed robber called Lawrence Nomayogbon Anini was ransacking every nook and cranny of old Bendel State, the police authority then selected two of the best police brains who are natives of Bendel State, Mr Parry Osanyade then a commissioner of police but now retired as a DIG and Mr Omonaroro Kayode who retired as a Superintendent of Police with a mandate to flush the bastard out of the state, and they did.
It can therefore be argued that the posting of Mr SNOW back to his native land turned out to be the tonic needed to restore hope and security to the people of Bayelsa.
Supol Nengi was born in 1972 in Nembe, a sprawling oil rich community close to the Atlantic Ocean in Bayelsa State. After his secondary education, he proceeded to University of Science and Technology, Port-Harcourt where he bagged a bachelor of science degree in Accountancy in 1995 and later at University of Lagos where he obtained a Diploma in Criminal Justice Administration and again obtained an advanced Diploma in Security Operations and Management in 2003.
He got enlisted into the police force in 1992 as a cadet inspector and since then, has held several challenging positions exhibiting extraordinary traits of what a millennium police officer should be.
This young but very courageous police officer has helped in his own little way to restore the image of the police force in Bayelsa State and has gone ahead to make a success story out of community policing.
Supol Nengi has always brought to bear his intellectual disposition in all that he is involved in and no wonder in his lecture recently in Abuja, titled 'Crime fighting through Intelligence :the Bayelsa State experience" he postulated thus, 'When nations dream great dreams: great minds are called to duty."
His paper at the 2005 annual security watch summit left no one in doubt that within the police circle there are brains that need to be nurtured to greater heights. These are the policemen and women of the future.