Osinbajo backs community policing to tackle insecurity
South-west rejects military, Fulani vigilance group
VICE President Yemi Osinbajo has described community policing and neighbourhood watch as potent methods to tackle the rising insecurity in Nigeria.
He noted that traditional rulers and locals were crucial for the successful implementation of the scheme to achieve peace across the country.
Osinbajo spoke yesterday in Osogbo, Osun State, after meeting with traditional rulers in the state as part of the ongoing consultations over security challenges in
the South-west region.
He said his mission was to meet and hold consultations with critical stakeholders in the region with a view to stemming insecurity.
“We are meeting purposely to understand the security architecture of the region. You know we have already had consultations with state governors from the SouthWest.
“These consultations continued, and we are meeting with traditional rulers because they are important components of our security architecture, particularly because we are working on community policing.
“Community policing remains one of the methods of policing we have adopted, and I am sure you heard the Inspector-general of Police (IGP) talking about recruiting police from local governments, those who understand the environment, the language and the culture of the people they are policing.
The closed-door meeting witnessed about 94 traditional rulers in attendance led by the of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi.
Meanwhile, the Yoruba Summit Group has described the reported deployment of military and Fulani vigilance groups in the South-west as an insult and provocation by government.
In a statement signed by the Publicity Secretary, Gboyega Adejumo, the body expressed concern that authorities that have steadfastly, and for so long, opposed the establishment of state police forces could back deployment of vigilance groups.
The statement read: “This is the first time we the Yoruba have ever beheld a central government promoting terrorists as vigilantes and openly whitewashing terrorism. “The Yoruba Summit Group is constrained to express its profound dissatisfaction with the federal authorities’ proposed measures in response to the deteriorating security situation in the South-west.
“Deployment of soldiers along the major inter-state motorways, as is being proposed in certain quarters, is unlikely to be any more effective for reasons that are not dissimilar to those that have rendered the army’s earlier intervention ineffective in the killing fields of the central Nigerian states of Plateau, Benue, Taraba and so on.”
AWOMEN group, known as ‘Women Supporting Women’ in Kogi State, has purchased nomination and expression of interest form for Natasha Akpoti to contest the governorship election on the platform of Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The spokesperson of the group, Hajia Ummihani Otokiti, said they were motivated to ensure she contests to give the womenfolk a lift from the backwaters where the men have relegated them.
She said the group, made up of women from the 21 local councils, saw how Akpoti was robbed of her mandate to be senator representing Kogi Central.
However, the Organising Secretary of the party, Emeka Atuma, appreciated them for purchasing form for someone to contest for the governorship of a state.