Community Policing Panacea To Security Challenges- OPCI Coordinator

The President and National Coordinator of famous Oodua Peoples’ Care Initiative, OPCI, Dr. Maruf Olanrewaju, has berated the on-going level of security challenges in the country calling for community policing as the way out.

The OPCI boss made this condemnation in his welcome address delivered at a one day summit organised by the organisation at the Center for Arts and Culture, Ilorin, Kwara State on Tuesday.

According to the Security expert, “We are currently witnessing an unprecedented wave of security challenges in Nigeria which is making things to be getting worse everyday”.

Olanrewaju, who described as illegal, the Boko-Haram sect, Niger Delta militants, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, among others, emphasised that, they are without charter, Articles of Association or Board of Trustees, adding that, “their promoters are known and move freely, interacting and intermingling with law abiding people across the federation without hindrance or questioning by law”.

“An outlaw is an outlaw but here in Nigeria, they are found to be mingling with the law? This is where we found ourselves”, he added.

While speaking on the emergence of the OPCI, Olanrewaju said, the Oodua Peoples Care Initiative, was founded on September 24, 2017 duly and legally registered with the CAC in Abuja, saying, it is not an ethnic militant group but believe in ones and unity of the country with efforts of promoting peace, unity and progress of the entire country all the time while it is on record that the organization is adopted by well to do people worldwide as well as three tiers of governments.

While delivering lecture on “National Security-The Role of Media, NGO and Community in the Midst of Challenges”, famous human rights activist, Comrade Taiwo Otitolaye, informed that, security was situated within national security environment.

Otitolaye who hinged the following, security consciousness of the citizenry, security policies, security institutions, security personnel and the community as bane of insecurity advocated the need for all the citizens to be security conscious as a way out of the challenges.

The Activist, decried the country’s colonial security heritage built on a system not meant to protect the citizenry but oppressive in order to collect taxes for the colonialists without any major reforms since independence.

Otitolaye further enjoined security institutions to cater for their personnel and other stakeholders, while calling for the training, equipment and proper welfare of the security agencies across board in order to be motivated to perform well.

Also, in his goodwill message, Kwara State Council Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Comrade Umar Abdullahi, admonished media practitioners to do more on profiling of criminals in the society.

Abdullahi, noted that there was no day that something is not written or broadcast in the media on the security challenges confronting the country;

He, however, called for more information to the media by the community just as he charged the media to continue to do more in security agenda setting for the government.

Similarly, the Chairman of Kwara State Community Policing, popularly known as Metro Peace and Security Initiative based in Ilorin, disclosed their readiness to collaborate with OPCI, saying a community involves everyone as each and everybody belongs to a community which they would not want destroy but developed.

He, therefore, charged various communities to rise to the challenges of security situation and safe themselves.