Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The Inspector General of Police Abubakar Mohammed Adamu has expressed preference for the adoption of community police as against the clamour for state police.
The IG made this submission yesterday in Abuja when he spoke to reporters during the submission of the report of the committee set up by the federal government on strengthening of internal security framework and community policing in Nigeria.
The report was submitted by the committee headed by the Permanent Secretary, Special Services Office, Mrs. Amina M.B. Shamaki, to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha.
The IG noted that community policing was the best solution to the country’s security challenges, saying it would enable policing initiatives to be derived from the communities rather than from the police high command.
Adamu stressed that community policing would allow for engagement of the communities in every aspect of policing initiatives unlike the state police which required each state government to create, recruit, train, and manage a policing system separate from the federal system.
“Because the advantages of community policing outweigh the idea of state policing, the disadvantages of state policing are more than the perceived advantages. The way to go is by community policing, which will take care of all the demands and agitation for state police,” The IG said.
While shedding light on how the Nigeria Police intends to approach the implementation of the community police, the IG revealed that a lot of strategies had been put in place towards community policing, stressing that one of those was the report to fine-tune the implementation strategy.
“The idea is that in every community, we identify people from that community, who grow from that community, and know everybody within the community. They would be recruited and trained as community police officers and would only work within that community,” the IG clarified.
While submitting the report, to be forwarded to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mrs. Shamaki said in order to ease the accomplishment of the assigned task, the committee devolved into two Sub-Committees; Internal Security and Community Policing, while members of the sub-committees held several meetings during which they critically studied the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, report with a view to developing actionable recommendations for strengthening internal security framework and for the implementation of Community Policing in the country.
The committee, she noted, proposed innovative alternative funding mechanism to ensure the provision of infrastructure, as well as equipping security agencies with modern gadgets and weapons and for the welfare and well-being of personnel.
The SGF expressed optimism that the outcome of the recommendations would enthrone a paradigm shift that will focus on community policing, re-orientation of citizens and building a sustainable conflict resolution process that would assist in solving the perennial security challenges in the country.
The SGF, who applauded the courage of the committee, assured that government would critically, and without any delay whatsoever, study the report and speedily give effect to the recommendations therein.
“I equally note that your work touched on the need to deploy appropriate technology in the fight against the various dimensions of criminality, the context of coordinating internal security architecture, capacity development and professionalism of security personnel, citizens’ involvement in internal security management as well as innovative funding mechanisms of security agencies and their operations and not the least, welfare of personnel,” Mustapha said.
