In months to come, Rivers State Government will start recruiting young men and women into the state’s Neighbourhood Watch And Safety Corps. It will mark a turning point in the Nyesom Wike-led administration’s drive to curb insecurity and other sundry threats to peace and stability in the state.
Despite facing strong opposition by the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has insisted that the Corps will go on as planned. In essence, communities will handover security of their terrains to people who are well known to them, people who understand the area and people who grew up there.
On the surface, it appears very attractive but deep down, it also presents a reasonable degree of threat. A lot of people have expressed their concerns, especially when it was disclosed that the Corp members will bear arms.
Questions have also been asked as to the criteria that will be used for the recruitment process so as to avoid the Nigerian mistake.
Just the other day, during the police recruitment process, a notorious cultist who was on the wanted list of the Rivers State Police Command was arrested at the venue of the police recruitment center at the Port Harcourt Civic Centre. More intriguing is the fact that he had scaled through the first screening process and was on the second phase when, not the police who had declared him wanted, but an indigene who knew him, raised alarm leading to his arrest.
If not for the indigene, we would have had a wanted murderer and cultist as a law enforcement officer armed by the government.
In a country where records are hardly kept, how would such occurrence as described above be avoided?
How would the intended Corp members and personnel be vetted? Who would vet the personnel? What are the measures put in place to ensure that the Corp members do not derail throughout the process? How are they going to be funded, trained and equipped? Who would purchase firearms for their use and who will train them in the usage of such? Will they be answerable to the Rivers State people or the Rivers State Governor and his political party? How will the members of the opposition be treated as election approaches?
It is our belief at theportcitynews.com that utmost care be taken in the event that leads to the recruitment process. Members of the opposition should equally be carried along to avoid rancor. The government should also eschew any form of political sentiments in carrying out the recruitment process.
The state needs peace as election approaches. Let us all work to attain it.
