Insecurity: Senators meet IGP, to support Police through legislative intervention

The Senate has pledged to support the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) with the required legislative interventions to combat rising insecurity in the country.
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, made this known, after a closed door session between the senate and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, on the security situation in the country.
The senate had after consideration of five bills for first reading at plenary, resolved into ‘Committee of the Whole’ for a close session with the IGP.
The IGP was invited to brief the senate on security matters and modalities to be adopted for the much canvassed community policing.
Lawan said: “The IGP answered questions bordering on security challenges like banditry and assaults on our major roads across the country.
“He also responded to questions on illegal circulation of fire arms in the country and efforts been made to encourage synergy between the federal and state governments to tackle insecurity.
“The senate thereafter resolved to support the Nigeria Police through legislative interventions.”
According to Lawan, the police must find a way to be more operationally proactive to protect the lives of the citizens .
Adamu after the close session told journalists that he had briefed the Senate on the concept of community policing.
“If you can remember, last year we sensitised the whole country on the need to adopt community policing in the country.
“The concept is to give policing back to the community and let the community take the initiative in identifying the problems that can lead to crimes and then we work with the community to solve the crime.
“We believe that every body comes from the community .
“In a community, we know who and who is there, taking policing back to them will help in reducing crime to the barest minimum,” he said.
Adamu said community policing entailed partnership between members of communities to safeguard lives and property, noting that there were different types of communities.
“You can have traditional institution as a community, National Union of Road Transport as a community,
“You can have the media as a community and various forms of communities that we need partnership with.
“When we talk about the partnership, we are talking about problem solving ,we need to solve problems that are in the communities.
“What we mean here is that we scan the communities to find out what are the indices that can lead to the crimes that have been committed already,” he said.
Adamu added:”We analyse the problems and then we look for solutions.”
He said there was need to educate law enforcement officers so they can key into the programme which was what he explained to the senate.
“What we are saying essentially with the community policing is that fighting crimes should not be left to the law enforcement agencies alone;
“It should not be left to the security agencies alone,” he said.