Community Policing: Group writes to Buhari, demands N13.3billion disbursed through Police Trust Fund

• By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu

COMPPART Foundation for Justice and Peace Building has written to President Muhammadu Buhari demanding the N13.3billiin earmarked for the community policing project be disbursed through the Police Trust Fund for management and not the Nigeria Police Force.

In the letter endorsed by its Executive Director, Saviour Akpan, the group argued that”it is not the duty of the police anywhere in the world to implement community policing rather it is the community with the police and other security agencies as partners”.

According to COMPPART, the scale of training requirement in community policing is such that it is simply not feasible to rely on the existing training institutions of the Nigeria, because,” it will involve training and redeployment of social agents within the cultural sensibilities of the different states and communities in Nigeria”.

The group is of the opinion that such will be properly managed by Police Trust Fund which h is a creation of an Act of Parliament with accountability as it’s core mandate.

It argued further” our experience over the years shows that if the more ey is given to the Nigeria Police to manage, we will not be able to achieve the import of community policing in Nigeria, stressing that such fund may likely be mismanaged.

However, the group is grateful that the president has chosen to move the community policing project forward it’s formal launch in April 2004.

The group said that the project has moved from what it describes as”political sloganeering” to a more realistic stage which has witnessed the release of take-off funds.