Neighbourhood Watch Trains 550 New Officers

By Jide Afolabi, Jos

The Neighbourhood Watch of Nigeria, Rantya Police Division, are currently training 550 newly recruited officers at Azi Nyako Youth Centre in Jos, the Plateau state capital.

The 5-Day training workshop will help the new officers to know about intelligence gathering and reporting, and also help the participants to know their rights, the Do’s and Dont’s while carrying out their lawful assignments.

The Commandant, Neighborhood Watch Nigeria, Gagman Boppije made this known on Monday during the opening ceremony of the training workshop.

The Commander noted that the Neighborhood Watch is a voluntary service at the moment.

He highlighted objectives of the group to include, “To cooperate with Officers of men of Nigeria Police and members of the communities in order to promote police-community relations, mutual understanding and confidence in our security organs and bridge the gap of credibility and acceptance between the Police and the communities; To support the Nigeria Police, to police our immediate communities due to shortage of manpower of Nigeria police; To find a way of discouraging or minimizing crime and criminality; To form intelligence network that may be used to minimize crime and to perform any other activities as may be directed by the government.

The Commander highlighted some of the achievements of the body to include, networking and information dissemination, solving the criminal activities hitherto going on at Dadin Kowa first gate which was almost a concern for the residents of the area, helping to decongest the unnecessary artificial gridlock caused by tricycles on the main road, and arrest of some of the criminals who were handed over to the police.

He, however, said the achievements would not have been possible without the support of His Excellency, Rt Hon Simon Bako Lalong, The Director-General, Peace Building Agency, Commissioner of Police, Plateau State Command and the Divisional Police Officer, Rantya Division.

The representative of the Governor at the event, Director-General, Peace Building Agency who doubled as the guest speaker, said the state government headed by Simon Bako Lalong is solidly behind the organisation and said that in recognition of the importance of the Neighborhood Watch to the Plateau State Government, the same training and workshops will be replicated in the other zones of the state.

Speaking on the theme of the workshop, “Community Policing As A Panacea For Addressing Insecurity To Attract National Development”, Longman said where there is no security, it will be devoid of development, hence, the importance of this Neighborhood Watch.

In his goodwill message, the Plateau State Commissioner of Police represented by Deputy Commissioner of Police, Tafida Aliyu advised the newly recruited officers to operate within the ambit of the law in discharging their duties and highlights some of the DO’s and Dont’s and advised them to be security conscious as they are not carrying weapons to always move in twos or more.

The coordinator of the Neighborhood Watch Nigeria, Engr Ola Azizi appealed to the government to assist the security outfit with equipment to work with.

He urged the government to consider Neighbourhood Watch Officers for recruitment into the Nigeria security agencies whenever there is recruitment.