Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu has explained how community police will tackle insecurity.
He said the idea would reduce crime to the barest minimum at the grassroots as it will take policing back to the community.
IGP Adamu had been invited by the Senate to explain the police โconcept and implementation modalities of community policing policyโ as part of efforts to curb the deteriorating security situation.
He got the Senate backing on legislative interventions for the implementation of the concept after more than five hours of talks with the senators.
Adamu told reporters after the meeting: โIf you can remember, last year, we sensitised the country on the need to adapt community policing and the concept is to give policing back to the community. Let the community take the initiative in identifying the problems that are there that can lead to the commission of crime and the we work with the community to solve the crime.
โWe believe that everybody comes from a community and the community is a community you know who and who is there.
โTaking policing back to the community will help in reducing crime to the barest minimum.
โSo, I have explained the concept of community policing to the Senate, which involves partnership with communities and there are various communities.
โYou can have traditional institutions as a community. You can have the National Union of Road Transport Workers as a community. You can have the media as a community and various communities that you can have partnership with.
โIf you are talking about partnership, we are talking about problem solving. We need to solve problems that evolve in the community.
โWhat we mean here is that we scan the community to find out what are the indices that can lead to the commission of crime or a crime that has been committed already.
โWe analyse the problems and then, we look for solutions and the responses that are available. Then, we deploy resources to deal with the problems and then, subsequently, we re-evaluate all our responses to see how we can adjust to solve the problem.
โAnd in doing this, we need to capacitate our officers to key into the process. This is essentially what I explained to the Senate.โ
The police boss urged governors and chairmen of local government areas to take responsibility in tackling insecurity in their domains instead of leaving everything to security agencies.
According to him, tackling insecurity should not be left in the hands of the police alone. โIt is the responsibility of all,โ he said.
The IG insisted that other arms of government, especially the governors and council helmsmen, should always be responsive in addressing issues that could potentially lead to insecurity within their jurisdiction.
Adamu said: โSecurity issues are fluid or dynamic. At a stage where you have a rise in crimes, we re-strategize and deal with them and everywhere will be stabilised.
โAnd for a period of time you will see stability in crime situation. But at another stage, you will see the criminals re-strategising and coming out to commit crime.
โWhat we are saying, especially with the concept of community policing, is that fighting crime should not left to law enforcement agencies alone.
โIt should not be left to security personnel alone. Everybody should be involved. What are the things that lead to the commission of crime? Are all issues to be dealt with by security agencies alone? No.
โThere are other arms of government that need to deal with issues of security. State governors, local government chairmen should take up their responsibilities.
โPeople that are committing these crimes, there are reasons that make them to commit these crimes.
โIf it is lack of employment, if it is lack of education or those issues that will require intervention by the government, the governor should take responsibility.
