Following the growing insecurity in the country, a former Deputy Inspector General of Police Operations, DIG Israel Ajao (rtd.) has called for homegrown policing otherwise known as community policing approach to tackle the menace.
Ajao who made this call at the closing –out and award ceremony of the Nigerian Policing Programme (NPP) in Lagos last week noted that community policing was the way to go adding that it was relevant to all Nigerian.
Ajao who is also the Chairman, Board of the Lagos Neighbourhood Safey Corps (LNSC) said in his words, “When I saw that opportunity at the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps, I grabbed it with two hands because I know that to miss it, so, I want to thank you (NPP), acknowledge you because we were working together when I was in service and it is a pleasure that after service, I still find myself in a position where I am still benefitting from you. When I learnt that you are leaving the country, I was not very happy.
“Lagos Neighbouhood Safety Corps is a brand new baby in law enforcement and it is just to complement the Nigeria Police, to help, to bridge the gap that exists between the neighbourhoods, the communities, and the people that we are to serve. That was an opportunity given me and I have been doing it.
“If you were a DPO somewhere in Lagos in those days, probably you would have needed an interpreter sometimes to interview parties unless you speak the native dialect. I started in the east, I started in Umuahia and Enugu, I started forcing myself to speak Igbo so that I could understand but with LNSC, it is homegrown, people who reside in a particular community, local government for years and have evidence for that from the Lagos State Residency Registration Agency (LASRRA) card is so qualified apart from other academic qualification and then, the traditional ruler, an important personality or a senior civil servant must write a letter of reference for such a person. Once you become a Neighbourhood officer, you are posted back to that same local government to work so that if anybody sniffs there, you will know and you tell us.
“In Lagos today, by the grace of God, if anything goes wrong in the 57 LGAs and LCDAs, I get to know, there is no magic about it, it is because of intelligence gathering, it is because of community policing, it is because of partnership, participation, you get everybody involved. There is no magic about policing. That can be adopted all over and I am quite sure that most of our problems will be solved.
“I cannot remember when last a bank was attacked in Lagos, it is not that there are no armed robbers not to attack banks or that they don’t have guns, it is because the opportunity to do it and do it successfully is almost zero in Lagos. You cannot invest where you know there is no profit. You can break a bank but if you try it, just try it and see how many RRS cars you will see in matter of minutes.
“So, my message this afternoon is simple, let our policing become homegrown and we must be careful whether it is federal police, whether it is state police, whether it is local government police, that is a matter for lawyers and the constitution, community policing is relevant to all of you. Community policing involves every person, you cannot be sitting down, talking everyday about insecurity without getting involved at the grassroot.”
While acknowledging that the story of community policing in Nigeria would not be complete without the NPP, he observed that there were myriads of security challenges, different types of crimes as according to him, “crime is said to be dynamic, what is happening in Uyo cannot happen in Yobe but the constant thing is crime.”
“If we want to be serious with ourselves, then we must continue to dialogue on the way forward. I was a Policeman for 33 years and I cannot stand here to pretend that all is well in my primary constituency not necessarily because the Police is not there to police Nigeria but because there are inherent problems; legal problems, historical problems, inherited problems, self-inflicted problems, the ones we cause ourselves, abuse of human rights here and there.
“When I was in service, I used to say to officers and men that the best public relations officer for the Police is an average Policeman. No matter the English your PRO speaks, once a Policeman at a checkpoint or at a stop and search misses it, forget all that the PRO will say, after sometime, they don’t even listen to anything. So, in-house, we must look at ourselves, are we doing what our masters, Nigerians have employed us to do? And I am sure majority of Nigerian Police officers are toiling day and night to ensure that there is security of lives and properties but then, it does appear that the challenges are mighty but they are not insurmountable and that is where the NPP comes in.
“If we develop our capacity as individual Police officers, individual law enforcement officers to deliver on our mandate, there is no way at least we will not be seen by the public to be working in their interest. If that capacity building is lacking, there is very little the man can do even if you have labourers in your farms and you don’t develop the capacity of those labourers, at the end of the year, you are not going to get anything from the farm.
“I don’t know what the situation is now but in the years gone by, training was just for the asking. I remember we could not come in as a cadet Inspector of Police without passing through Winfield in England. Passing through Winfield was part of your training to come out as a security expert not to talk of cadet ASP. What do we have now? All the Colleges are moribund, teaching aids are not there, facilities are not there but it is not a hopeless situation and that is why I must congratulate our brothers and sisters in the NPP”, he added.
Photo: Chairman Board of LNSC, DIG Israel Ajao (rtd.).
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