By Muhammad Nasir Bashir
The Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF), has organised a four-day training for about 90 police personnel from Jigawa Command of the Nigeria Police Force, on intelligence-led policing.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was organised in collaboration with Rhynyx Consults.
Malam Bashir Umar, a representative of the NPTF, supervising the exercise, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse on Wednesday that it was organised and funded by the firm.
Bashir said the overall objective of the training was to improve the capacity of the Nigeria Police Force on intelligence gathering for effective crime prevention.
He explained that the gesture was also part of the mandate of NPTF to train and retrain the policemen for better service delivery.
According to the official, part of the mandate of the fund also is equipping the police with the state-of-art equipment in line with modern policing.
“The topic, intelligence-led policing for crime prevention, is paramount for effective policing.
“We are impressed with the level of participation and performance of the consultant for the training and as a trust fund, we will continue to support the NPF in line with our mandate,” he said.
Bashir expressed the hope that the training would add up to the knowledge of the participants on crime prevention.
“At the end of the training, we expect that it will add up to their knowledge of crime prevention; they will go equipped with knowledge on how to improve their crime prevention techniques.
“As a police officer, intelligence is very paramount because every police officer is expected to be intelligent.
“So at the end of this program, it is expected that every participant should go back home with added knowledge to carry out his lawful duty effectively,” Bashir said.
One of the resource persons, Mr Ukasha Ismail, described the training as timely, adding that it was necessary that policemen were trained and retrained for effective crime prevention.
Ismail, a retired police officer and now a lecturer with the Department of Sociology in the Federal University, Dutse, said the training would change the way Nigerian Police approach to crime prevention.
“The training is all about how the participants can gather and use intelligence for crime prevention and control.
“I think it is necessary that policemen are not only trained but retrained. This is because new ways of fighting crime are evolving everyday as societies develop.
“So there is the need for the police to be trained on these new ways of fighting emerging crimes,” Ismail said.
He added that the trainees are expected to use the knowledge acquired during the training to be proactive than reactive in crime prevention.
“Nigerian police have been known to use reactive approach to crime control. And the essence of this training is to change the narrative from being reactive to proactive.
“This means preventing crime before it happens and this can only be achieved when the police have sound and actionable intelligence,” he said.
Also, Mr Yahaya Garba of the Ryhnyx Consults, engaged by the NPTF to train the participants, noted that intelligence-led policing was one of the new development in the modern policing model that provides alternative to the reactive policing strategy.
“Specifically, the training will enhance effective crime prevention,” Garba said.
One of the participants, SP Thomas Ochang, also described the training as timely, pointing out that the global best practice for policing is intelligence-led policing which facilitates effective crime prevention.
“Now the idea of policing is to prevent crime from happening, not the past system which we are used to, that is we react to report of crimes.
“Now the approach is to prevent the crime from happening, that’s what the facilitators have been inculcating in us. It is a very rich lecture and eye opener.
“So we are very grateful to the NPTF for organising this training aimed at improving the performance of the police personnel in crime prevention,” Ochang said.
NAN reports that the training, which commenced on Tuesday, May 9 will end on Friday, May 12. (NAN)
