Ademola Adeleke Seeks Senate Approval To Invite IGP On Community Policing

The lawmaker representing Osun West Senatorial District, Senator Ademola Adeleke, at the plenary on Tuesday moved his first motion at the Senate, leading to the invitation of the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to make recommendations on how to introduce community policing in Nigeria.

The motion, which was unanimously adopted by the Senate, was entitled, ‘The Need to Post Junior Cadre of the Nigeria Police Force to Their States and Local Government Area to Enhance Community Policing in Nigeria.’

Granting the only prayer of the motion, the lawmakers resolved to “direct the Senate Committee on Police Affairs to invite the Inspector General of Police to suggest ways and means of actualising community policing.”

In the motion, Adeleke recalled that the colonial masters came to Nigeria and met the people without western education but with well established monarchy that governed the citizens internally, with security operations that safeguarded lives and properties within the various ethnic groups in the country.

He pointed out that the colonial masters inherited already established institutions of law and order strengthened by traditional rulers through moral uprightness and sanctions that encouraged the submission of the subjects to native authorities across the country.

Adeleke said, “It is desirous that the lower ranks of the Nigeria Police – Constable to the rank of Inspector – be posted to their respective states of origin to improve and impact positively on community policing through synergy with vigilante groups and traditional rulers to address the current state of insecurity in the country.

“The Senate is aware that there have been calls for the creation of state police in order to proffer a lasting solution to the perennial security challenges due to the ineffectiveness or outright bias of the Nigerian Police Force in carrying out their national assignment.

“The Senate is further concerned that the disconnect between the Nigeria Police and the various communities with their different cultural values and orientation created a vacuum that needed to be filled through community policing in order to avail the federal police the opportunity to concentrate on its primary duties of detection, prevention and prosecution of crime at the national level.”

Senators Emmanuel Bwacha, Samuel Egwu and Sola Adeyeye, who supported the bill, pointed out that community policing was long over due for the country.