From: Ben Dunno, Warri
Delta State Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Zanna, has canvassed a more proactive method of tackling the menace of crime in the society through an effective community policing that would enhance sustainable collaborative efforts between the police and the vigilantes.
Speaking in an address presented at the flag off/official launch of the Warri Area Command Community Policing project held, on Friday, at the Government House annex, in Warri, Zanna noted that since information was key in the collective efforts to crime prevention only the indigenes are in better position to provide this in their various communities.
According to him, “criminals are not spirits; they are persons we know and therefore, can only be easily identified and exposed to the hands of the law by members of the community they live”.
The Police Commissioner who was represented at the occasion by an Assistant Police Commissioner (ACP) Dan Mammah, in charge of SCIID, expressed optimism in the collective efforts of the police and the vigilantes in effectively reducing the menace of violent crimes and other social vices in the society as it makes the identification of criminal elements easy and affordable.
“Those who conspire and rob, kidnap and even kill our love ones in the pursuit of evil wealth are not stranger. Where they are not strangers, they must have in formats who are our kits-and-kin”.
“To counter this growing ugly trend therefore, all hands must be on deck. By this project, the command is extending an oak-leaf of friendship to all well meaning and responsible citizens of Delta state to embrace this all important project in the effort to build a secure and peaceful state”.
In his speech at the occasion, the Warri Area Commander, ACP Muhammad Shaba, noted that, “Community policing is aimed at empowering and conferring the responsibility of addressing problems in a locality on the inhabitants in conjunction with the police”.
” This partnership embraces rural and urban agencies, businesses, individual citizens, non profit groups and the media”, adding that the essence was to ensure community participation in its own policing by working together and mobilising resources to solve problems affecting public safety