News
Presidency: Many States Agitating For Community Policing Struggling To Pay Salaries
The presidency on Tuesday bemoaned the inability of a lot of states asking for community policing to fulfil their monthly financial obligations to civil servants in their respective states. Unable to cope with salary payment.
As insecurity in the country reaches a frightening height, there has been strident call for state policing in some parts of the country.
This clamour has led to the creation of Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Operation Amotekun in the southwest states.
By the same token, the federal government had on Thursday approved N13.3 billion for the take-off of community policing in the country.
Appearing on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television show on Tuesday, Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesman, was asked why the federal government waited this long to ratify funds for take off of the project.
Responding, he said: “For President Muhammadu Buhari, the concern has always been about the spread and abuse of weapons in the hands of police.
“He said repeatedly that, look, a lot of the states that had clamoured for state police, many of them are unable to cope with salary payment. If you hire a community policeman and give him a gun, and keep him for five, six months without salary, what do you expect? Efforts have been taken so that situations of this kind do not arise. So, therefore, there is a standard national procedure and prescription for each of the states to comply with.”
Shehu also said Amotekun cannot operate outside the structures put in place by the police authorities.
“Whatever name they go by, Amotekun or whatever, they will be streamlined and they will be run in accordance with the structure as defined by the inspector-general of police,” he said.
Also Read: Community Policing: Police Begin Screening Of Candidates In Enugu Aug. 26
“They will be localised, they will be owned by local communities, they will be managed by them. You know, the constitution of the committee has been defined to include council chairmen, religious leaders, traditional leaders, civil society groups and all of that.
“They can choose their own nomenclature but it doesn’t make a difference. There is a general structure for all state and local council community policing mechanisms and this should abide in the states.
“So, we are going to have a single type structure community policing across the country and whatever is not in line with this does not have a place in the new scheme of things.”
Advertise or Publish a Story on EkoHot Blog:
Kindly contact us at [email protected]. Breaking stories should be sent to the above email and substantiated with pictorial evidence.
Citizen journalists will receive a token as data incentive.
Call or Whatsapp: 0803 561 7233, 0703 414 5611
