Police Wednesday kicked off a two-day workshop for stakeholders of Community Policing in South East geo-political zone.
The workshop aimed at educating the stakeholders on the importance of community Policing and how to ensure effective policing of various communities in the South East Zone was attended by police personnel from the five South Eastern states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, as well as traditional rulers and police constabularies.
Speaking at the flag-off of the two-day event, at the Police Detective College, Enugu, the Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mr. Alkali Baba-Usman, represented by the DIG in charge of Zone 13, Mr. John Ogbonnaya Amadi, stressed on the importance of Community Policing saying that policing was everybody’s business, hence the need for every citizen of Nigeria to participate in policing our environment.
Baba-Usman said that Community Policing was not a new lexicon in Nigeria as it took off since 2020 and has been producing good results of ensuring adequate policing, saying that the concept has brought policing closer to the people.
The IGP also said that Community Policing has made policing less cost effective because since everybody is involved in policing, government would not have to spend so much on policing.
“The expected outcome of the workshop for stakeholders of Community Policing is how best to go about enforcing Community Policing,” he said.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen, Amadi who represented the IGP said that police constabularies were volunteers who were trained to complete the police.
He explained that they were people who have something doing but volunteered to participate in community policing and as such are not expected to be paid salaries.
“When they were recruited, they were told that they are volunteers. It is for people who are self-employed, so they are not expected to receive salaries,” Amadi explained.
One of the stakeholders and the traditional ruler of Owerri, Imo State, Eze Peter Njemanze said that to ensure adequate security of lives and property, the police personnel should be handsomely paid so that they will bring out their time for the job. “Anybody who is poorly paid, you don’t expect him to give out his best,” he said.
