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He made this statement on Wednesday, the day he formally succeeded former IGP Usman Baba as the head of the Nigerian Police Force.
IGP Egbetokun cautioned police officers that he would not put up with misconduct, corruption, or abuse of power and that offenders would face heavy punishment.
The new police chief added that he would reveal his plans and strategies for securing the nation and shielding Nigerians from all kinds of security threats, such as robberies and gunman assaults, in the days and months to come.
IGP Egbetokun stated that the salaries of constables hired in the past have already been investigated and will be paid by the end of the month, along with any arrears and allowances.
He claims that under his leadership, every law-abiding citizen will be included in the effort to combat crime. The new police chief emphasised that in addition to technology information collecting, human intelligence gathered from communities will be leveraged to reduce crime.
We will rely heavily on the human intelligence present in our communities in addition to technology intelligence. In order to address the issues in our community, we will take a proactive stance, he declared.
Community Policing Initiative
Some state governments and sociopolitical organisations like the Afenifere and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo had clamoured for community policing to address distinctive security concerns in the areas as banditry, brutal herdsmen attacks, killings, and abductions increased in Nigeria in the last couple of years. The groups demanded constitutional reform ahead of the elections in 2023 in order to permit power devolution and a decentralised policing system.
A regional security operation known as Operation Amotekun was founded by six states in the South-West geopolitical zone in 2020. It has since been legalised and is in operation in the states of Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun, and Osun.
Additionally, the Ebube Agu regional security organisation was established in 2021 by five South-East state governments, and it has now gone into action, exactly as the Benue State Government did with the Benue Guards in 2022.
But despite growing calls for the police to permit them to carry assault rifles like the AK-47, it has been claimed that the men of these state-owned security are less effective since they lack an arms licence.
In an effort to make community policing effective, the administration of then-President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2020 approved a sum of N13.3 billion for the launch of community police initiatives across the nation. However, the initiative’s implementation has been hampered by a number of issues.
Challenges will be dealt with
The new IGP stated that community policing would succeed despite the difficulties encountered during the initiative’s implementation.
“On community policing, there are a lot of things that we are going to do differently in the implementation of the community policing strategies that we are operating at the moment,” said IGP Egbetokun.
“I raised that with the retiring IG, my immediate predecessor, shortly before we arrived here, and he informed me of all the difficulties we are having putting the community policing strategies into practise. We won’t stop working on it; instead, we’ll keep going while taking a lot of things under evaluation. We’re going to figure things out.
A Tiger Is In Me: Why I Said It
The new police chief responded to his remark that he had a tiger and a lion inside of him, ready to eat Nigeria’s internal enemies, by saying, “I said it merely to indicate how very anxious I am to start working and to also communicate the message that I am aware that there are enemies that we need to battle together.
To be able to overcome the security issues our nation is currently experiencing, we must all work together. It will be everyone’s responsibility. Everybody will be a cop; we will all be involved. We will collaborate with all organisations and law-abiding citizens.
