Recall we are implementing a Community Policing Project which seeks to enhance community involvement in their own security, ensure accountability in security governance and setting up community/security structures for decisions and information sharing. This project is being implemented in Nigeria and Cameroon. Commendable progress has been made as formal community policing structures are now in place, and security agencies and communities now poised to begin working together.
Towards strengthening the involvement of the highest office of the Nigeria Police in this project, Lawyers Alert on the 6th of September 2023, paid an Advocacy visit to the Inspector General of Police at the Louis Edet House, Police Headquarters in Abuja. We met with the Commissioner for Community Policing of the Nigerian Police Cp. Ihebom Chukwuma who thanked Lawyers Alert for taking the project and stated that we are all stakeholders in security issues regardless of religious affiliation, ethnicity or race. Lawyers Alert team was led by Rommy Mom, President of Lawyers Alert, Peace Okeshola, Advisor Legal, Mainasara J. Galadima, Legal Officer and Jennifer Adasu, Media Officer. The CP regretted the IGP absence and committed to another meeting in the near future. We presented IEC materials on community police.
In ensuring that the Cameroon leg of the project is on same path, our Director of Programs, HQ, Lazarus Mom, alongside the M&E Advisor, Isese Sor, were in Cameroon to meet with our partners the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) from the 26th to 27th of September 2023. Lessons were equally shared between both countries project personnel in reflections
In same vein the Nigerian Community Policing Steering Committee, which is representative of all security arms in the state, convened at the Lawyers Alert Nigeria headquarters in Makurdi, Benue State on the 28th September, 2023 to examine and deliberate upon the outcome of the Community Policing Committees (CPC) established in Katsina-Ala and Guma Local Governments.
Throughout the meeting, all relevant stakeholders actively shared the valuable insights and collectively devised a roadmap for fostering the effectiveness and functionality of the CPCs in the designated project implementation areas.
Our community policing project is supported by the Open Society Foundations