Akwa Ibom Gov Eno Launches Community Watch To Curb Insecurities In Rural Areas

Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, has launched Ibom Community Watch, a neighbourhood security outfit to enhance security in rural communities and strengthen community policing with security agencies.

The Governor who inaugurated the security outfit on Thursday at the Uyo Township Stadium, reiterated his administration’s commitment to consolidate on the strides of the previous administrations in the area of peace and security.

He said the core vision of the outfit is to provide security at the grassroot level, provide intelligence for the mainstream security services and ensure that government facilities are not vandalised.

According to him, “They are to work under very strict supervision and control of the main security agencies, especially the Police.

“Their jobs will be to provide security information, to help in crowd control, to help protect basic government assets and ensure that there is peace in all the areas where they are located.”

The governor expressed optimism that the Ibom Community Watch programme, beyond ensuring security at the rural communities and ensuring safety of public facilities from vandals, will also create employment for about five thousand youths, stimulate the economy by creating business for entrepreneurs.

He affirmed that all body and foot wears used by the security outfit must be produced locally.

“I would like to also say that not only are we creating jobs for these five thousand people, we are creating jobs for small business enterprises,” the governor said.

He explained that, “The uniforms you see here are made by Akwa Ibomites. All of the boots that these men are wearing are made by Akwa Ibomites and that is part of stimulating the economy, so that our people who have handwork will continue to do more things.”

The governor also directed that all splinter security groups in the state be collapsed under the Ministry of Internal Security for profiling and recruitment into the state scheme.

He further stressed that the Ibom Community Watch will henceforth be in charge of crowd control at government events and controlling traffic caused by transporters and traders at some locations in the state to avoid conflict by splinter groups.

“These splinter groups may not have really helped us as a State, and sometimes we have clashes among those groups.

“It is better we put all of those groups together, train them, profile them and give them a permanent job and then move them off the streets so that they can be useful, not just to themselves, but also to the society.

The governor assured that buses, motorcycles and communication gadgets will be provided to the group on local government basis to help them navigate rural areas and ensure ease and timeliness in information sharing both within the group and with the security agencies

He thanked the regular security agencies for providing required technical support and training of the initial 550 personnel to kick-start the outfit and affirmed that the next batch of training and recruitment will be targeted at creating a team of locals from the riverine areas to help in marine security, stressing that 30% of the total 5,000 personnel target for the Ibom Community Watch should be women.

Governor Eno who used the occasion to explain the Security Trust Fund bill recently passed by the State House of Assembly and assented by him, noted that security is a serious business and needs funding which will require the contributions of non governmental organisations to succeed, hence the need for the law and an agency that comprises both government and private stakeholders.

“Government alone cannot fund it. We are going to set up a board comprising service personnel, our own people and the private sector.

“We are going to work out a modality from January. Everyone who picks up business in Government would have to pay a security fund, and everyone that does business in Akwa Ibom would have to contribute to the fund.

“The fund will not be managed by anyone in Government, but in a collaboration. The chairman of the trust fund would be a private citizen and a businessman who would understand that these funds are meant only for the security needs of our state,” he added.