In May last year, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State announced far-reaching measures to enhance community policing in the state. The governor in the announcement ordered the revival of the state-owned vigilante group, the Abia State Vigilante Services (AVS).
The annoouncement also directed all traditional rulers in the state to submit names of 10 youths from their communities to be enlisted into the AVS, and also directed that all enlisted operatives of the AVS should proceed on a two-week training before being deployed to their communities to assist in community policing under the supervision of the Commissioner of Police.
Unfortunately, however, this directive has not been implemented till date. No time requires this intervention than now when crimes in various maaners and forms such as abduction of children, kidnap, rape, herdsmen/farmers clash, armed robbery, among others, are resonating across the country.
There is urgent need to revisit this far- reaching measure by Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu to ensure a strong and virile community approach is established in the state. It will be recalled that calls for community policing have mounted recently.The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo in a book launch ‘Law on Prevention and Detection of Crimes by the Police in Nigeria’ in Abuja recently said the Federal Government would soon announce new policy on community policing for better service delivery. Osinbajo, who assured that the establishment of community policing would not take away the powers of the national police, explained that sitting down in Abuja to police other remote parts of the country was not practicable any longer.He continued that “there is no way we can continue with the way we are going with policing now”.
The urgent need to establish a community policing system is triggered by some factors which include the glaring deficiency in police-civilian ratio. In Nigeria, there are 370,000 police officers and a police-to-civilian ratio of 1 to 400. It is grossly inadequate for 370,000 police officers to police about 170million population. This highly negates the United Nations recommendations of 222 policemen per 100, 000 citizens.
Because of the deficiency in police manpower, the basic essence of community policing is to complement the efforts of the traditional police. In this vein, members of the community police can arrest suspects and hand them over to the police within the period stipulated by the law. The laws do not support that they torture or manhandle any suspect. In some circumstances, unless, otherwise permitted, they are not permitted to carry arms.
The advantages of community policing cannot be over-emphasised. One, the community is policed by its members who are very familiar with the environment. Second, members of the community police know the character of members of the community to their finger tips. This will go a long and make it very easy for the identification of people with questionable character in the community.
However, whenever the issue of communities being policed by its members arises, one argument is inevitable. The argument is how a person that lacks basic police training would be entrusted with policing responsibilities. This argument is defeated by the fact that these personnel would be exposed to periodic basic policing trainings. Another argument bothers on the character of thoswe tyo be recruited into this arrangement. This argument is also flawed. For instance, in the proposed Abia State model, the traditional rulers are highly involved in the recruitment process and this will ensure that men with questionable characters would not find their way into this arrangement.
Community policing involves collaboration between police and community members characterized by problem-solving partnerships to enhance public safety. This arrangement was adopted widely among law enforcement agencies in the 1990s, with a view toward improving trust between community members and police, and leveraging police resources through voluntary assistance by community members in public safety measures. The three basic strategies of community policing are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem-solving. Community partnerships consist of collaborative partnerships between the police and the individuals and organizations they serve to develop solutions to problems and increase trust in police.
It also involves the use of partnerships between municipal agencies, businesses, individual citizens, non-profit groups and the media in order to develop methods to police the community. These organizations work together to address criminal matters and reduce crime. Instead of simply leaving it to the police force, community policing revolves around a philosophy that the entire community can help take measures to prevent crime.
According to the definition of the United States Department of Justice defines community policing promotes organizational strategies in the community to combat potential situations that might create public safety issues. For instance, crime, social unrest and fear of crime are all public safety issues that community policing seeks to address.
Community policing has come a long way. In some locations it is identified as “Neighborhood Watch” This is an example of community policing, where individuals partnered with traditional police forces work to make their neighborhoods safer and to minimize crime.
Community policing is a philosophy that started many decades back in the United Kingdom and United States, but did not come to Nigeria until 2004. This policing strategy has been incorporated into modern policing so that the police will respond to democratic system of governance.
Finally, because of the high prevalence of crime currently ravaging the country, there is an urgent need to revisit the proposed reinvigoration of the Abia State Vigilante Services(AVS). This will go a long way in checking crime in the state.
Written by Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu
