Police Report Exercise In Madrid. The NNA President Speaks.

Comrade Lampty 

FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK: Comrade Lamptay Ikponmwonsa Oriakhi.

Fellow Nigerians,

"...Without trying to hide under the excuse of it being the first time we are handling an exercise like this, we have come to realize our mistakes in planning and have begun to put measures in place to curb any semblance of re-occurrence when the exercise returns to Madrid on September 29th."

In view of recent developments vis-à-vis the conduct of the recent Nigerian Police Report exercise which started in Madrid and is currently on-going in other cities in Spain; I am poised to break the silence at this time to set records straight.

First, I like to state for the records that this exercise is happening at this time because of the invaluable effort of the Nigerian Embassy, officials of the Federation of the Nigerian Communities in Spain as well as regional Nigerian Associations in the Kingdom of Spain. Hence, the chosen center of the exercise in Madrid is at the instance of the Nigerian Nationals Association.

Having had a four strenuous days of the exercise which lasted between Monday the 18th and Thursday the 22nd of August 2014; I am sad to admit that the feedback have not been very encouraging in some serious respects.

This is particularly so because of the many back door reports and feelers that have been filtering in. Sadly, we came to understand that while some of my officers and I were working hard to meet the expectations of more than a thousand Nigerians that were gathered at a time, some others around us were helping themselves by taking bribe from Nigerians in other to help them get quick service before others who may have been waiting for days.

We equally came to understand that various means and ploy were employed to aid different kinds of racketeering in the course of the exercise. Some of the ploys made the management of the crowd even more cumbersome for my officers because there were some amongst us who have been alleged to be fulfilling different motives.

Some of these short comings that we have noticed, I have considered as failure on our path and as President, I take responsibility for it.

Without trying to hide under the excuse of it being the first time we are handling an exercise like this, we have come to realize our mistakes in planning and have begun to put measures in place to curb any semblance of re-occurrence when the exercise returns to Madrid on September 29th.

Meanwhile, rising from our last executive meeting which held on Wednesday the 27th of August 2014; we are resolved on bringing all indicted defaulters to book as an association. To this end, we are urging all those who may have given bribe willingly or coarsed into giving bribe to anyone to come forward and identify such a person with a view to helping us put things right and put the association on a more disciplined platform.
Furthermore, while we condemn the bad eggs amongst us; we also express great displeasure at those who willingly want to jump the queue by looking for whom to bribe to gain underserved access to quick service.

I hereby wish to use this medium to inform Nigerians that from September 29th when the exercise shall return to Madrid, we would have put more effective measures in place to curb all unholy excesses of bad eggs amongst us. I equally wish to assure everybody that we have the word from the police and the embassy that everybody who need police report would be attended. Hence, I advise everyone to be calm and follow the rules of engagement set by the Association.

On a final note, I wish to thank Her Excellency, the Ambassador of Nigerian to Spain, Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu and the Nigerian Embassy staff for their efforts in the course of this exercise. I equally express my profound gratitude to Pastor Philip of Royal Gospel Power Ministry Fuenlabrada for making available his church as a venue for the exercise in Madrid. My gratitude equally goes to my hard working executive members of the Nigerian Nationals Association, volunteers and members of the Federation of Nigerian Communities in Spain for their efforts so far.

More information will come your way soon.

May God bless you all and may God bless Nigeria
Comrade Lamptay Oriakhi
President