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AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
17 November 2007

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Nigeria: What Police Informati

To some observers, it is another desperate move by the police to redeem its battered image and restore public confidence. But to the Nigeria Police, it is a move to consolidate its "Operation Serve, Protect with Integrity."

In line with the new operation code, the police initiated Information, Complaints, and Suggestions (INCOMS) information gathering project to provide the citizens the right to forward their complaint on the police, crime and any other related activities.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command, said responses to fresh calls for public participation in community policing through the use of information boxes have been encouraging.

The police have mounted boxes in many public places in Abuja and Lagos through which they interact with members of the public on crime and security related issues.

Categorised into three, the first is for members of the public who may wish to pass written information to the police (preferably against suspected criminals), the second is for those who may have complaints to make (especially against men and officers of the police), and the third box is for people who may wish to suggest ways to curb crime.

"This is an initiative of the Inspector General (IG) of Police," FCT Police Public Relations Officer [PPRO], Superintendent Ahmed Musa told Weekly Trust. "We had boxes before but this is the first time we are having them in many places and in three separate categories instead of just one type and placed mainly around police stations."

In Lagos and Abuja where the Information, Complaints, and Suggestions (INCOMS) information gathering project has been launched, the boxes are nailed to walls public places like major motor and amusement parks, worship places, markets and shopping malls and police formations.

Assessing the performance of the new system, the FCT PPRO said collated information so far showed that members of the public have good grasp of what was expected from them. "We are in constant awareness efforts to sensitize more people to the availability and purpose of these boxes, but, as a concept launched only very recently, it is already a success," he said.

Acting Inspector General [IG] of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro launched the INCOMS project for the FCT Police Command on September 19 and did the same for Lagos State Command on September 21.

Okiro said at the maiden launch, "We have been receiving complaints that members of the public who have information for the police are facing difficulties passing such information. Others complaint that information they do give place them at personal risk, or at best not properly utilized."

The new concept, he said, is a comprehensive answer to crime and rebuilds the public confidence on the police. On how confident the information in the boxes would be handled, he said some officers have been mandated to pick up the boxes, unlock them, and hand over the contents to appropriate quarters for necessary action.

Musa added, "A public complaint and information bureau has been created and affiliated to the public relations office; that is my office. My role is to collate all the data from the boxes for the necessary action of my (police) commissioner. A great thing about the new initiative is this: people shouldn't have any fear that they will be identified by those they write against. You don't have to write your name. You can type whatever you want to get to us if you do not want to write using pen"

The FCT and Lagos commands have been chosen as pilot projects, a dependable source at the Force Headquarters in Abuja has said, after which the INCOMS project would spread to other commands across the country.

"The Inspector General has told the various state commissioners to forward their request for the different boxes," the source said while explaining that INCOMS would be launched in more states and because different states have varying needs, the police consider it expedient to make the states determine their specific needs."

While the police is working hard to convince Nigerians about the efficiency of the new method in curtailing crime, observers were of the opinion that it would work only if such information is treated with trust and confidence.

The Chief Executive Officer of Technocrime Nigeria Limited, Chief Tony Azuya said information management between the police and the civil populace can only work if the people will develop the consciousness of feeding the boxes with the expected crime-related information and if the police would learn to use them properly.

Azuya hoped that the public would not make a habit of dropping into the boxes private petitions as would do the public no good, and also that the police would desist from handling information without subjecting the informant to danger.

Azuya hoped that the police would not disclose the identity of their source of information in order to prevent any clash between informants and the suspected culprit.

The Nigeria Police as a nationwide singular government-run civil society intervention organisation came to be in 1930 after three regional police formations in Lagos, Calabar and Lokoja, merged to form the national police as it is known today.

Colonialists headed the police up to 1964 when the first indigenous Inspector General (the 11th in the line of succession), Mr. Louis Edet, was appointed.

From the 30-member Consular Guard established in Lagos in 1861, the Nigeria Police swelled into hundreds of thousands in men, women and officers.

The CIA World Fact Book published in 1991 an account of the performance of the Nigeria Police which states, among other things, "Corruption and dishonesty (are) widespread, engendering a low level of public confidence, failure to report crimes, and tendency to resort to self-help."

Past governments in Nigeria made different attempts towards solving some of the problems that have been bedevilling the police force without success.

The military government of retired General Ibrahim Babangida, for example, attempted to make police personnel and members of the public think alike and work as family by directing police authorities to post their men and officers to work in their respective towns and villages of origin.

Babangida also tried a degree of decentralization of the police by reducing state commands into area commands headed by area commanders to whom the state commissioners in the respective zones were to report.

The week the IG launched the INCOMS in Abuja and Lagos, President Umaru Yar'Adua held a meeting with top officers of the regular police and the State Security Service (SSS) and gave them one month deadline to bring down the rate of crime so radically that the effect would be noticeable.

Incidentally, assurance of security is one of the president's avowed priorities. It ranks high within the seven-point agenda he drew up on his way to the presidency earlier in the year.

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AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA17 November 2007

Nigeria: What Police Informati

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AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
17 November 2007