Speaker Abbas Drums Support For Community Policing As Vigilante Group Seeks Govt Support

By; BASHIR BELLO DOLLARS, Abuja

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr. Tajudeen Abbas has reaffirmed the commitment of the House in strengthening intelligence in efforts geared towards tackling insecurity in Nigeria.

This was expressed by the Speaker, Dr. Tajudeen Abbas at a public hearing on a bill for an act to establish private intelligence and investigation councils organised by the House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence in Abuja.

Declaring the public hearing open, the Speaker who was represented by Hon. Muhktar Shagaya, said the bill seeks to develop a regulatory framework for overseeing private intelligence and investigation firms by ensuring that they operate ethically, responsibly and within established professional standards.

He said security reforms remain a top national priority and the time has come for a multi level policing to move from theory to a decisive level of action.

“Beyond Constitutional reforms there’s also an urgent need to strengthen community policing as provided in the police act 2020 to make it more effective and more responsive to the realities of local communities” he said.

Earlier, the chairman of’s House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence, Hon. Ahmed Satomi said if established the bill aims to standardize industry practices, provide accreditation and certification for continuous training and development inorder to enhance collaboration between the private and public security sectors.

“To strengthen our security architecture requires innovative approaches including effective regulations of private security practices” He said.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen after submitting the position of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN), the Commandant General, Navy Captain Umar Abubakar Bakori (Rtd) said the Vigilante Group of Nigeria has over a million members scattered in all the 774 local government areas of the country, noting that the VGN represents the masses and therefore, they are in best position to assist the security agencies in community policing issues.

“State Police is not the solution, the Police are in charge of internal security, the military are in charge of the defence of the nation, they can not do it alone, we the VGN are partners in progress.

“If you add up all the security operatives they are not upto 1 million but we are over 1 million, they need to carry us along because we get intelligence better than any other organisation because we live with the people at the community levels” he said.

Navy Captain Bakori urged both the federal and state governments to support the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN) in its quest to assist other security agencies in policing the communities adding that although the government spends billions of Naira annually on security the VGN is not given a dime in its volunteer efforts.

Other stakeholders who made submissions at the public hearing include, the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy, the Federal Fire Service, the Police and the Nigerian Immigration Service among others.