By By Micheal Chukwuebuka
FORMER Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Olatunji Disu, has urged Nigerian parents to stop shifting their responsibilities onto security agencies, stressing that policing cannot replace parental love, guidance and discipline.
Disu, who shared his reflections from years of service, recalled an encounter with a retired soldier whose son, a university student, had been arrested for cultism. Overcome with rage, the father stormed into the police station demanding that his son be killed.
“His rage was volcanic,” Disu recounted. “But the very next day, he returned with food, asking after his son. When I teased him, ‘So you don’t want us to kill him again?’ his eyes revealed the truth: anger is often the flipside of helpless love.”
Years later, he said, he met the young man again—reformed, educated, and married. According to him, it was not imprisonment that changed the young man, but his father’s eventual decision to support him rather than abandon him.
The retired police chief said such cases were common, as many parents brought their children to the police demanding they be detained, tortured, or “disciplined” into good behaviour.
“One father even begged us to keep his drug-addicted son in custody for weeks,” he revealed. “But police cells are not rehabilitation centres. If anything went wrong, who would be blamed? The police.”
Disu maintained that the real crisis was not a lack of discipline but a lack of presence from parents, noting that too many had handed their duties over to teachers, police, and social workers.
“The police enforce laws, but we cannot replace love,” he said. “We investigate crimes, but we cannot teach values. Our cells are not classrooms, and handcuffs are not parenting tools.”
He urged parents to embrace their roles as the first teachers in their children’s lives.
“Our parents were not perfect, but they owned their role,” he added. “Today’s parents must do the same—not with harshness, but with wisdom and love. Be present. Listen. Correct. Love.”
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