A federal lawmaker, Kayode Oladele, has welcomed the announcement by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, that policemen would soon be deployed to their communities of origin to enhance Community Policing. The IGP had told participants during a security stakeholders’ meeting held recently in Lokoja, that the bulk of the 150,000 policemen to be recruited over the next five years would serve in their respective communities.
Oladele who represents Yewa North and Imeko Afon Federal Constituency in Ogun State hailed this decision as long overdue. In a statement over the weekend, he said: "the implication of Community Policing is that it fortifies the community, creates a police-community synergy in policing and above all creates a sense of belonging in the people of the community making them more pro-active. With this policy in place, criminals and potential criminals cannot be shielded. A lot of them will even drop the idea of partaking in crime knowing that it will be difficult for them to hide in their community."
He added further that "everywhere in the world, Community Policing has become the best way to secure and protect communities; and it has also become the best way to complement the work of the police. Wherever communities are alienated, neither the security of the police nor that of the community can be guaranteed."
Oladele who is the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes defined Community Policing as much more than a group of residents roaming the streets of a neighborhood at night. He said: "It is about knowing all the weak points in security matters; it also means internalizing the intelligence processes and how to predict, identify and embark on self-protection in case of danger; and then it is also about how, acting as a group, a community can shield and protect itself from criminals and criminal behaviors. Community policing is therefore, at once, a learning process, a process of security and protecting the self and the community – it is about putting security matters first."
The lawmaker who is a longstanding advocate of Community and State Policing in Nigeria, also noted that the concept is indispensable to the overall security of the country, because current policing requires nipping in the bud, potential threat issues, working closely with communities to ensure that they are well-fortified and closely secured and above all ensuring that everybody is knowledgeable of security issues, claims ownership of the security process and partakes in security surveillance.
