Senator Ireti Kingibe, representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has called for a more structured approach to community policing to check rising insecurity in the FCT.
A statement issued by the senator’s media aide, Nana Kazaure, said her principal’s call came on Sunday night during her appearance on a Channels Television programme, “Sunday Politics”.
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The senator, who spoke on a range of issues, said a combination of community and regular policing holds the key to solving the FCT’s security challenges.
She said, “We need more and better organized community policing and more regular policing across the FCT—not the checkpoints they dismantle by 10 p.m., but serious policing of the rural communities through intelligence-driven processes.
“People want to provide information to the security, but they need security presence to avail them of such information. Mind you, when people provide information and security does nothing until it gets out of hand, such people get frustrated.”
Referring to the growing incidence of the practice of criminals robbing people in vehicles and sometimes killing them, known popularly as “One Chance,” Senator Kingibe said a more efficient and coordinated transportation system to curtail such criminality is urgently needed.
The senator, elected on the platform of the Labour Party, decried the high number of policemen deployed to protect wealthy and influential members of society, noting that this leaves very few of them to protect the majority of the citizens, who are then left at the mercy of rampaging criminal elements.
“I dare say that about a quarter of the police force protects the VIPs which I believe is not good enough. We have Agro-Rangers and others who carry arms, but they are not well managed in their aggregate to provide adequate security for the citizenry”, she said.
Senator Kingibe deplored the uncooperative attitude of Barrister Nyesome Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, who she said, had refused every overture for cooperation to fight insecurity in the FCT. She noted that the FCT minister feels he is still the governor of a state where he wields so much power.