Presidency lists what govt aims to achieve with community police funding

The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Garba Shehu on Tuesday explained what the Federal Government aimed to achieve with its funding of community policing.

After initial foot-dragging on the issue, the Nigerian government, last week approved N13.3 billion for the take-off of community policing.

Shehu, who spoke on a Channels Television’s programme, Sunrise Daily on the community police funding said that the essence of the government funding at this time was to do two or three things.

“One is to ensure training for those who are to be recruited to join the police service, two (is) to enlighten the public about the functionality of the new system and three is to procure equipment. But above all is the need to streamline the processes embarked upon by the states and the sub-regions.

“As members of the community, we know ourselves better, we know all the nooks, the crannies, we know who is who and so, therefore, it is not difficult for intelligence to be supplied for effective law and order management in the community,” he said.

When asked why Buhari finally decided to approve the community policing arrangement Shehu said:

“For President Muhammadu Buhari, the concern has always been about the spread and abuse of weapons in the hands of police.

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“He said it repeatedly that, look, a lot of the states that had clamoured for state police, many of them are unable to cope with salary payment. If you hire a community policeman and give him a gun, and keep him for five, six months without salary, what do you expect? Efforts have been taken so that situation of this kind does not arise. So, therefore, there is a standard national procedure and prescription for each of the states to comply with.”

According to Shehu, whatever name community police in different states go by, “be it Amotekun or whatever, they will be streamlined and they will be run in accordance with the structure as defined by the Inspector General of Police.”

He added, “They will be localised, they will be owned by local communities, they will be managed by them. You know, the constitution of the committee has been defined to include council chairmen, religious leaders, traditional leaders, civil society groups and all of that.

“They can choose their own nomenclature but it doesn’t make a difference. There is a general structure for all state and local council community policing mechanisms and this should abide in the states.

“So, we are going to have a single type structure community policing across the country and whatever is not in line with this does not have a place in the new scheme of things.”

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