By Adebola Adegoke/Iyiola Pedro
The Lagos State Neighbourhood Safety Agency has deployed 233 body cameras, safety shields, surveillance drones, dashboard cameras, stun batons, binoculars, vehicles, telephones and internet facilities to its divisional offices.
The General Manager of the agency, Dr Ifalade Oyekan, said this at a media breakfast meeting in Lagos on Wednesday.
The theme of the meeting was: “Five Years of Safeguarding our Neighbourhoods in Partnership with the People: Our Achievements, Our Challenges.”
Oyekan said that they were meant to boost the operations of agency’s personnel and enhance effective community policing across the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the agency was established in 2016 to partner communities, police and other relevant security agencies in gathering, collating, and sharing information and intelligence to ensure safety in communities within Lagos State.
Oyekan added that the agency had set up a situation room and software to monitor officers on duty, to ensure transparency and accountability.
“We have also upgraded our communication systems by installing hollow masts to replace the outdated angular masts.
“This is to ensure the free flow of communication among officers across the divisions in the state,” Oyekan said.
He also said that the agency was rebranding its operations across the state to ensure effective community policing by December.
The agency’s personnel are currently operational in all the 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas of the state.
Oyekan said that the agency would create more operational units to complement the activities of other security agencies and boost community policing in the state.
He said that the new units would include: Research, Development and New Innovation; Human Trafficking, Domestic and Sexual Violence; Forest Rangers; Marine Patrol and Deterrence, Anti-riot and Crowd Management; Forensics and Crime Scene Management.
“There is the need for a department that will be solely dedicated to researching crime, modern methods and techniques of policing as well as challenges militating against safety and stability.
“For the Forest Rangers’ unit, the objective is to create formidable intelligence gathering machinery within forest areas of the state; especially in Epe, Badagry and Ikorodu.
“Selected officers will be trained in jungle activities such as tracking, jungle calls, non-verbal signals, animal migration, and natural compass reading.
“They will mainly gather intelligence and transmit same to the operations department, and intelligence departments of sister security agencies.
“We are also training our officers to understand the importance of crime scene management to prevent loss of valuable evidence such as prints, blood spatters, positioning and other evidence that the scene provides for investigators,” he added.
The general manager thanked Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu for his support toward making the agency a model in community policing in the country.
He, however, solicited more support from the government for the agency to be able to actulalise its mandate.
On inter-agency cooperation, Oyekan said that it was important in ensuring effective safeguard of lives and properties of the residents of the state.
He said that they had been working with the Police, the NSCDC, the Army, the Department of State Services, NAPTIP, the NDLEA and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
He added that the agency had submitted several intelligence reports of its surveillance on abandoned buildings, vehicles, suspected illegal immigrants, beggars and hideouts to the relevant agencies for appropriate action.
He said that the agency recognised the role of citizens in safety and security and had constantly engaged with community leaders, development associations, traditional and religious institutions.
“The agency also is developing safe and anonymous crime reporting mechanisms to encourage citizens’ partnership and participation in security,” he added.
He called on the residents of the state to cultivate relationships with the agency’s personnel in their neighbourhoods and support them with information on potential security threats.(NAN)
