The Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 1, Mr Lawan Ado, has inaugurated the Borno State Community Policing Committee, aimed at reducing crime in communities and deepening trust between the public and law-enforcement agencies.
Ado said at the inauguration of the committee on Monday in Maiduguri that the idea of community policing was a new way of preventing crimes in society.
He said that apart from the involvement of conventional local security outfits, local women, traders and community leaders must also buy into the new approach of crime prevention.
“The idea of community policing is to prevent crimes at the grassroots and this is going to be intelligence-driven,” he said.
Also speaking, The Borno Commissioner of Police, Mr Mohammed Aliyu, said the committee would support the operation of the police in Borno and its remote communities.
Aliyu said that members of the committee comprised heads of security agencies in the state, religious and community leaders, Civilian Joint Task Force, hunters, market women, NURTW among others.
He said that 1,350 people would be recruited into the committee, 50 from each of the 27 Local Government Areas of the state.
He explained that the committee would also be made up of the Command’s Advisory Committee, which included traditional rulers and that DPOs would co-chair the committee at the divisional level.
Aliyu said that the committee was aimed at establishing and developing new forms of cooperation between citizens and the police, especially in the areas of intelligence gathering and dissemination.
He explained that the committee was also a means of mobilising citizens, institutions and potential local communities, to raise the level of crime prevention in communities.
The Chairman of the Borno State Police Community Relations Committee, Mr Sanda Sheriff, described the inauguration of the committee as a new dawn in police-community relations.
“This will bring relief to us and engender better cooperation between the police and members of the society. In the past, there has been distrust between the two.
“But this inauguration of the community policing committee will bring about trust and cooperation.
“Our job as a committee is to go into society and select trusted and reliable people who will work as community policemen,” he said. (NAN)
