Community Policing Taking Roots in Nigeria – IGP
By Lazarus Zakaa, Abuja.
The Inspector-General of police, Mohammed A. Adamu, has stated that the community policing strategy approved by the Federal Government is gradually taking roots in Nigeria and is being warmly embraced by most strategic partners and Nigerian people.
He stated this on Thursday during a One day sensitisation workshop for Nigeria Police Community Policing Officers across the 36 States of the federation and FCT held in Abuja.
He said community policing strategy is an initiative intended to bring political closer to the community through partnership and problem solving approach.
Noting that it was based on the premiered that both the police and the community must work together to identify, prioritize, and solve contemporary problems such as fears of crime, social and physical disorder, and overall neighborhood security threats, with the goal of improving the quality of life in the communities.
The IG added that the strategy relies on organizational decentralization and reorientation in order to facilitate two-way communication between the public and the police. “Our mission in adopting this strategy is to control crime and make our communities safer” he said.
The IG said it was in light of the strategy that they have in synergy with the state governments inaugurated Community Policing Committees (CPCs) across the Federation.
“These committe ere responsible for appointment as community policing officers who will work with the police and the community in identifying peculiar security issues and jointly develop strategies to mitigate them”
“It against this background that we deemed it necessary to commence the strategy sensitization of officers and men of the Force with the first being, the workshop for community policing officers drawn from across the country”. He said.
According to the IG, similar workshops and training will be replicated in all the commands which would be facilitated by those being trained today.
The training according to him would enable police personnel to understand fully the concept and be able to exude conducts and attitudes expected of them in relation to their specific duties and roles in a community policing operating environment
Earlier, Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), Adeleye Oyebade, noted that success of any organization largely depend on the quality of it’s human resources, and therefore no organization whether private or government can afford to overlook the quality of it’s personnel.
According to him it was in all these consideration that the community policing unit of the Department of Research and Planning with the approval of the IG of police organizing the workshop for the community policing officers.
He said, as field officers they are expected to be catalysts and drivers of the community policing philosophy of the government.
He advised the participants to put premium on the workshop hoping that knowledge imparted in the them will be tremendously useful to the force as they would equally be expected to train their colleagues and help fast track the success of the project in their commands
