Community Policing Strategy Was My Brain Child-Former IG Reveals

News Rain Nigeria reports that the Former Inspector General of Police, IGP. Tafa Balogun has revealed that the recently adopted community Policing was his brain child.

The Former IGP who was in Ilorin the Kwara State Capital on Wednesday alongside the State Governor, Abdulrahaman Abdurazak as well as former IGP. Baba Attah to discuss way forward on sustainability of community Policing Strategy maintained that the gradually implementation of community police began under his tenure as the Inspector General of Police.

Community Policing Strategy Was My Brain Child

Tafa who was sacked by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, was also tried for corruption related charges and jailed in what many observers still believe was a case of scapegoatism and vendetta for which the administration Balogun served was notorious for.

Balogun who has shaken off whatever odium around him over the incident more that 16 years ago, staked a bold claim to the berthing of community policing in the country, saying without being proud, without being cocky, under the pupillage of my bosses, I make bold to say that when I was made the IG, I looked into all concepts of policing, and I saw community police policing and I adopted it.

Balogun maintained that he saw the strategy as a organisational strategy, then therefore introduced it into the Nigeria police dictionary.

He said, “If you recall when I came on board, I introduced the eight point agenda. I wanted my tenure to be accessed on eight things.

“Community policing was one of them. Operation fire for fire was another,” “But Operation fire for fire was more popular. But pick up the document and you will see that community policing was there.”

He maintained that he reached out to Britain, Chicago and Ottawa, Canada for assistance and training of officers on the strategy, noting that he got 66 officers to go for six month training on community policing in Britain, another 60 to Chicago. Ottawa also got to train some undisclosed number of Police officers on the strategy.

On returning, Enugu and some other  states were chosen as piloted states for the program, the strategy was very successful in Enugu then, Balogun stressed.

The former IGP however maintained that it’s so sad that the strategy was abandoned as soon as he left office.

Tafa at the program said that he began working on the new policing Strategy alongside other IGPs since last October.

” Sometime in October last year, the former IGs held a meeting under the chairmanship of the same Baba Attah, i was present at the meeting

” We held the meeting at the IG’s office in Abuja. We were very worried with the level of insecurity, level of turbulence, level of criminality in the country so we decided that during our retirement, we should not just fold our hands.

We decided to redeem the image of our country, and to also redeem the image of the police institution, as well as to redeem the image of all security agencies, and that is what we have been doing lately by going round the country. Some of us here have been in various zones.

I was in Lagos, I was in Osun state. We still going round. We want to say that the police institution remain our primary constituency.

The Nigerian community remains our home. We serve the police force and we are still serving it. We need this security because nobody does business in any chaotic situation. Tafa said.