Book launch: My experience led me to put down record for police, academia, researchers, Public relation students – Okasanmi 

By Ahmed Ajikobi

The kwara state police command spokesman, Ajayi Okasanmi has said his experience in the police force as a police Image Maker for years led him to put down documents for others to emulate and for research purposes.

Okasanmi made this known during an interview with journalists immediately after the launching of the book titled, ‘Memoir of a police image maker’ on Wednesday, held at the Banquet hall opposite the government house in Ilorin.

He said” My experience in office as police spokesperson led me to put down a record for academia, researchers, students and also public relations as a course.

“I have played the role of a frontman for the Nigeria Police Force in Kogi and Kwara states for fifteen years now.”

Speaking on what motivated him to write the book, Okasanmi said “I’ve been in the public relations for close to 15 years now, to God be the glory and I think it is good for me to put my experience both in Kwara and Kogi states on record.

“At the same time, I want to make sure that there’s a document that can be used as a research material by scholars and even policemen, especially those that are interested in public relations so that they can have something to work with. That’s just the primary reason for doing that. We’ve also put it on record that there was a time that Okasanmi Ajayi was the Police Public Relations officer in Kwara state.

” I started thinking about the book and working on it two years ago, and I will not lie. When I saw reason to do this, I called some people who are experienced in the area of book writing.

“I went through so many materials, my interviews, published by newspapers, I went through, and I picked some experiences, and I consulted some books that are relevant in the area of book writing. I started to put pen to paper and put my experience together. To God be the glory, today, it is a success today’ he submitted-

While speaking on challenges he has faced in force, he revealed two incidents which were recorded in the state as challenging situations.

“The first one that I will describe as a challenging situation happened in 2015, something happened at the eid praying ground that involved the then president of the senate, and it became so challenging in the sense that as a security agency and as police officers, it’s our duty to protect citizens and it involved someone who has a high profile in the country, the number 3 citizen, it will be very unreasonable for us to say we are here and people are doing something unimaginable.

“So, it took a long time for us to explain to the people. The narrative was not what people were saying outside. So, it was very challenging to convince the people. But eventually people knew that what happened that day was not what some people wanted them to believe, the former Senate President was not pelted with stones. But people wanted the narrative that said the man was pelted with stones at the eid praying ground. It was a very challenging period for us, and we had to defend our position.

“The second challenging situation was the time four Turkish nationals were kidnapped in Gbale village , Edu Local Government ,Kwara State in 2019.

“It was so challenging that the whole world’s attention was on Kwara state but to the glory of God we were able to rescue them alive and without paying a dime. Those were the hard times we had but with divine support we have continued doing our job’”he said.

Dignitaries at the event include, Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of National Pilot Newspaper, Billy Adedamola, former editor of National Pilot, Mrs Christy Doyin, Chairman, NUJ Kwara, Mallam Abdullateef Ahmed, Regional editor of Leadership, Abdulahi Olesin, Alhaji Tunde Akanbi, Don of University of Ilorin,Dr. AbdulRazaq Adisa,Chairman, Committee on Health , Kwara state House of Assembly, Hon Razaq Owolabi, Commissioner of Police Kwara state, Mr. Victor Olaiya, former Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin ,Olupo of Ajase Ipo, Oba Ismail Yahya Alebiosu, Emir of Shoga,Dr Haliru Yahaya, Olupako of Share, Oba Haruna Suleiman, Olomu of Omu Aran, Oba Abdulraheem Adeoti and Mr. Olohungbebe, a lecturer at the Kwara state Polytechnic, Ilorin..