Deji Elumoye in Abuja
The Inspector-General of Police (IG), Mr. Mohammed Adamu, has given an assurance that community policing will be ready for take-off across the country by September.
Adamu, who disclosed this yesterday at an interactive session with Senate Committee on Police Affairs, stated that already the implementation committees of community policing had since been inaugurated in all the 36 states of the federation.
“All the committees for the community policing strategy implementation have been inaugurated in all the states of the federation. We are at the level of selection of the community policing officers now. We hope by August/ September we will complete the process”.
According to him, “I was invited by the Senate Committee on Police Affairs to discuss the implementation strategy of community policing and security challenges and we briefed them on what we have done so far.”
The IG also expressed optimism that community policing “will take care of everything – the criminals are coming from the communities, which means within the community if you come from that community you will be able to identify that A, B, C are engaged in acts that either will lead to the commission of crime or they are committing the crime”
“So, because you come from the community, you will identify them and let the community policing committee in the ward and the local government level to identify them so that they take them out before they commit the crime. So, it is going to be effective in terms of grassroots policing and this is what is required,” Adamu explained.
Also speaking, President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, charged the IG to provide timelines for the implementation of the community policing in the country.
The Senate President told Adamu and his team to come up with milestones and timelines template for the implementation of the community policing in Nigeria.
“Going forward from today, we must have clearly defined milestones and timelines on the implementation of the community policing- something that we can go back to in three months, in six months and say where we are exactly”.
