A total of 704 people from the 34 local government areas of Kano State selected to serve under the community policing initiative, have completed their training.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the squad, trained at the Police College Kaduna, consists of 15 people from each of the 44 local government areas.
Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje on Sunday commissioned the personnel in Kano and congratulated them for successfully completing the training.
He urged them to use what they learned to improve security in their localities.
“We do appreciate your instructors in Kaduna who endure to help you, and from the report we had, they said you behaved very well.
“And you did very well, and they are expecting you to do more now that you are working for the society.
“There is no doubt that security is a serious challenge in Nigeria, and Kano State is not spared in that.
“Therefore, we have designed a number of programmes and projects to ensure that our state is secured.
“We have to thank God for protecting us and for making us one of the safest and most peaceful state in the federation.
“We have to continue praying to God and at the same time we have to follow our own policies that are meant to protect our people,” he said.
Ganduje said community policing has become part of the country’s security architecture, adding that his government had taken the initiative seriously.
“Security is the business of everybody, it is not only the business of police or other security agents, and that is what we meant by community policing.
“So, we congratulate you, and now you are going into full community policing in Kano State.
“We have already informed you of the structure of community policing; we have a village committee headed by the most senior village head, we have the ward committee headed by the most senior village head of that ward.
“We also have the local government committee, headed by the district head and then the Emirate committee headed by the respective emirs of those emirates.
“And we have the state committee headed by the Secretary to the State Government.
“We assure that there would be a flow of security information, a flow of intelligence from one level to another.”
The governor also pledged to provide necessary assistance to ensure the success of the initiative.
Earlier, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Shuaib Isma’il-Dikko, said community policing involves collaboration between communities and police to tackle security problems as they emerged.
He recalled that the governor had recently commissioned 100 special police constabularies deployed to traffic control duties.
The police commissioner appreciated the state government for its various interventions, including the provision of logistics, equipment and CCTV cameras to beef up security in the state. (NAN)
