FG hailed over community policing

The Police Assistance Committee (PAC) and its affiliate, Association of Tradesmen and Artisans (ATA), have commended the Federal Government (FG) over the release of N13b to promote the community policing project which aims at taking security network to the grassroots to curtail high rate of crime in the country.

The PAC, speaking through its Director-General, Dr Martins John Oni, while commending President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s bold initiative in embracing community policing, said the idea was a dream come true for the PAC which had been championing this cause in over 20 years of its existence, recalling that most activities of the PAC had always been centered on community policing.

In a statement in Lagos, Dr Oni stated that the PAC had always been the true champion of community policing, having been engaged in grassroots mobilization since 2002 when it came into operation by constantly organizing seminars and workshops.

The PAC boss explained that the organization had been partnering the office of the National Security Adviser(NSA) and the Senate Committee on Police Affairs in organizing and conducting seminars/workshops bordering on information dissemination/intelligence gathering.

Dr Oni further recalled that there are top-ranking police officers, serving and retired, who actively participated in their seminars and workshops and who could testify to all their efforts in this direction.

Also, while appreciating the move by the IGP Mohammed Adamu in setting up local community advisory committees at the states and local government levels in preparation towards the take-off of the community policing project, Dr Oni appealed to the police boss to actively involve the PAC/ATA, the real initiators of community policing in the country.