Fears Over Community Policing Initiative As Stakeholders Express Divergent Views

Reactions have continued to trail the recently approved N13.3 billion take-off fund for the community policing initiative across the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on August 20, through the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, approved the amount in order to kick-start the process in the hope of taming the raging insecurity in the county.

It is also believed that it will help to maintain peace, law and order in the communities.

But the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu had also recently said the approved sum for the take of the initiative would only cater for equipment, sensitisation, and training of the local police which includes vigilante and neighborhood watch groups.

Also, recently the Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Research and Planning, Adeleye Oyebade, said states will be responsible for the salary and upkeep of the community policemen.

Oyebade added that the Nigeria Police Force remained one entity but the constables that would be recruited for community policing would be part-time officers.

Oyebade’s statement did not, however, settle well with some of the governors, particularly in the South West where the Amotekun regional security outfit  is being implemented.

Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, who is the Chairman of South West Governors Forum, said governors would not fund the community police, adding that the idea of states funding the outfit would not work.

In an interview with THE WHISTLER, a security expert, Ben Okezie said what is needed in the country is state police, and not community policing.

Okezie believes that the initiative will eventually turn into vigilantees harassing members of the public.

He said: “They will still come back to what we have been advocating that what this country needs is state police. They want to shy away from state police and they want to go with community policing. At the end of the day we are going to hear of the story of vigilantees. Vigilantees are there and we have been hearing some ugly stories about them. Now that they will be empowered, wearing uniforms, that is when you will see their other side, where they will start harassing innocent people. There will be a cacophony of security operations all over the place.”

Okezie added that every state should be in charge of security.

He said: “It should have been state police. Let the government of every state handle everything about security, finish. The only thing we’ll now have is federal and state police. If state police is overwhelmed, they will call for federal police to come and assist, finish. The state police takes care of every structure of the state, not all these community policing. Now look at the amount of money they’re putting in. Alternatively, why not give that money to the police and ask them to recruit more people, spread the number across the whole country, instead of all these community policing.

“The way they’re (police) going about it, it’s going to create a lot of problems. Community policing should have been something where members of the public are well educated on what is security, so that whenever they see anything, they say something, not to be wearing uniforms, no. You’ll be watching the activities of the other man, that’s community policing, you have a place you can easily report anything to, finish. Now they want to make it look as if it’s one big issue. Where in the world did you see people wearing uniforms and say they’re community policing.

“Community policing is a situation where members of the community assist the police, doing the work of the police for them at the community level, helping the police and helping themselves to secure their community.”

On whether the initiative would succeed, the security expert said “There is a lot of confusion. Amotekun is already there and the police is saying they’re in charge. And there is alot of problems everywhere. And that should not be at this time because they’re is a lot of insecurity all over the place.”

He called on the government to instead do a reform, a restructuring of the police system and go for state police, not community policing.

On his part, another security expert, Kabir Adamu, who spoke to our correspondent, noted that the issue of community policing and funding by the states will lead to political grandstanding.

Adamu said: “In the issue of community policing, there will be political grandstanding. Already we are seeing that. Just yesterday I was listening to the governor of Oyo State where he made a very exclusive statement regarding operation Amotekun, that it will not be subsisted by the federal structure which is the police. I consider all of that as political grandstanding. My reason for saying that is because the governors, for what I will consider a remarkable change are not likely to want to forgo the security vote.

On the solution if the state governments will not want to fund the community police systems, he advised the government to withhold security votes given to states.

He said: “There is a pressure point that the federal government can use on them and that is the security vote. If they decide not to want to fund or counter part fund it, then pressure can be put through that security vote and several other budgetary allocations to states. So the political grandstanding is there, but the reality is that because security is in the exclusive list and because we still run the federal structure where money is given to the states, there is a limit to which states can push back on some federal decisions.”

He however, believes that the community policing will succeed in it’s purpose: “It will succeed. Think about it, I don’t think there is any state in the federation that has not set up. There are two aspects to the community policing. That is, setting up of the community policing committee and then the recruitment of the constables. Now most of the committees across the 36 states of the federation have been set up. What is remaining is the recruitment of the constables and I know that there is an argument whether the constables will be paid or not and how they will work.”

The security expert however expressed reservations over the structure and operational framework of the initiative

He said: “My worry however, beyond this argument between the federal and state government levels, is that the police itself has not sat down to roll out a structure, operational framework that will allow for the implementation. What mistakes have been learnt from previous experiments and revising or reviewing the policy or methods that we are having. The recruitment and training of police, because no matter how effective all of these things that we have mentioned are, if the policing structure itself is not effective, then it’s just a waste of time. So that’s my worry, the police doesn’t seem to be carrying out enough re-orientation among its core components to allow them understand the policy.”

A community leader, John Isaac of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), said the government should first of all do the needful, by not interfering in the process.

Isaac is the National Youth Leader of SOKAPU.

He was reacting to whether the initiative of community policing can succeed, particularly, as it relates to the insecurity in southern Kaduna.

Isaac said: “Well,  the problem is this, is not all about the issue of community policing. Now when you have a government on ground, the government is expected to do the needful in the first instance. If the politicians will allow it to succeed, good and fine. But in the situation where the politicians are still bent on frustrating the systems, I don’t think anything good can come out of this.

“The community policing, if it is still top down approach, we are still going to have a problem, unless if it’s bottom-top approach. Any community policing that is not going to come directly from the community, it’s going to be a problem for us. This is because it’s the community that understands eveything, they know who is who and all of that. So the community should be directly involved in the process. It shouldn’t be something that is just paper work and say you’re doing community policing.”