The Commissioner of Police, Western Ports Police Command, CP Hilda Ibifuro Harrison has underscored the need for improved collaboration and intelligence sharing among all the agencies of government for a well secured port environment.
Harrison who wade this assertion at a one day Stakeholders’ meeting and Training of the Police Officers of the command on attitudinal change in Lagos on Tuesday noted that all hands must be on deck to ensure that all persons who did not have genuine business around the ports area were not allowed to stay in the ports.
She stated that the police must continue to patrol all the nooks and cranies of the ports as a rapid measure to ward off hoodlums and miscreants.
According to her,” very importantly, we must continue to share intelligence and information bordering on the security of the ports with the police because our primary responsibility is to ensure we protect all stakeholders and their properties”.
“The duties of the various stakeholders can only be performed in an atmosphere of cooperation, collaboration and synergy and hence we need to thoroughly improve inter-agency cooperation. I am working seriously on that and I have been meeting will all other security agencies in the port environment to ensure we share intelligence and information”.
“In that regard, there must be unofficial but mutual interaction at all levels and how we get about doing it is strictly our business”.
She however emphasized the need for the various security agencies in the port to show mutual respect for one another’s skills, training and specialty in their respective field of endeavours adding that once that was done, they would be able to appreciate themselves as well as be able to come together as a unit to ward off criminals and miscreants from the Command.
On the reason for the meeting, the Police boss said that the meeting was a way of bridging the gap in communication among the Police, various security outfits of the various companies and stakeholders in the Western Ports so as to eliminate tensions and misunderstanding amongst them.
Also speaking, the President, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Chief Remi Ogungbemi expressed delight at the meeting but regretted that the meeting was more of the uniformed officers advising that more stakeholders should be invited at such crucial meeting as according to him, “to be safe is the responsibility of all and sundry.
He called for drastic measure to arrest the traffic gridlock at Apapa which he said had claimed the lives and properties of his members while pledging his association’s support to any effort geared toward the security of lives and properties at the ports.
“On behalf of the Association of the association of Maritime Truck Owners, I am pledging our loyalty and support to every effort that can bring about the safety of lives and properties in our ports”, he said.
