Lorine Emenike
The director-general of the Rivers State Neighborhood Watch Safety Corps, Dr Uche Mike Chukwuma says the security outfit will begin operations in March.
The Nigeria army had on November 29th 2018 disrupted the training of applicants into the security outfit at the NYSC orientation camp in Nowa, Tai Local government area.
The army described the corp as an illegal militia training camp and subsequently shut it down from the preliminary investigation.
But the DG in an interview with journalists in Port Harcourt said governor Nyesom Wike has assured that the security outfit will commence operations this year.
“The Governor has dictated that within the first quarter of this year, the operations of the neighbourhood safety corp agency will be rolled out.
“One thing you need to know about the governor is that he doesn’t speak much but when he speaks, he swings into action.
“We are expecting that between now and end of this quarter, we will do what we need to do for the state; giving back the security of the state to the people where we have to liaise with the community leaders, traditional rulers and operational bodies and then return the security back to the people where they can make contributions without the fear of molestation, without the fear of their information been taken back to the source where they have wanted it to be treated as an issue of secrecy”
Uche Chukwuma who is a retired assistant police commissioner, however, faulted the operational structure of the Nigeria police force saying such structure cannot accommodate community policing.
“The fact remains that we have been running an old policing system since 1861, doing the same thing all over and expecting to get a different result. It is not possible.
“We inherited policing from the British and since then, we have moved from the political era of policing into the community policing era where policing is in the hands of the people, and that is why in the community policing, you see the community as the police but still working with the police.
“But here in Nigeria, the central control of directives lie with the police even when they said they are getting the traditional rulers into the security of their community, what power or rights do they have? What voice do they have? At what point are they coming in to play a role in the decision making in the police”
Uche Chukwuma also frowned at the manner the recently recruited special constabularies were deployed noting that the action negates the principle behind community policing.
