The Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Ikemefuna Okoye, has stressed the need for the re-adoption of individual policing and neighborhood watch, as they were in the past before the introduction of western culture to check rising crimes in Nigeria.
Okoye, who attributed the success recorded in the area of security in the past to the concept of espirit- de – corps [brotherhood] imbibed by Nigerians leading to the basis for collective struggle said the valuable aspects of the nation’s culture and tradition must be embraced in this contemporary society to achieve the desired security needed.
A statement by the head of media in the Ministry of Community Development and Cooperatives, Mr Ayokunle Ewuoso, said the police boss was speaking at the occasion of the 2014 Ogun Community Day with the theme “Security And Community: Emerging Trends And New Strategies’’ organised by the Ministry in collaboration with the State Community Development Council, [CDC].
Mr Okoye said: “Before the advent of the colonial masters or introduction of western culture, our fore fathers had good and effective ways of policing their communities with little or no expenditure. The chieftaincy structures, religious endowments, individual zeals for policing and neighborhood watch were geared towards protection of lives and property in the society’’.
“More importantly, the concept of espirit-de-corps was so cherished by everyone then, which was a strong basis for their collective struggle to have sound security in the past and I strongly believe that there must be a great link or cross fertilized perception of our local culture and western civilisation to have more secured society.”
Presenting a paper with the theme “Security and Community: Emerging Trends And New Strategies”, retired Commissioner of Police and Consultant to the Ogun State governor on security, Olayinka Balogun, said the absence of good governance and subsequent infrastructural development could perpetrate or cause multidimensional insecurity problems.
He said government of the day may be held solely responsible for security or insecurity in any given environment, stressing that corruption, acrimonious politics, inequality and yawning gap between the rich and the poor, general discrimination and human rights violation and abuses amongst others were causes of insecurity.
In his remark the commissioner for Community Development and Cooperatives, Mr Duro Aiyedogbon, pointed out that the theme for this year’s community day was apt, coming at the time when the nation was witnessing security challenges. He noted that it was high time the country solved the issues of insecurity at once.