As part of the measures to check the rising insecurity across the nation, the Nigerian police are calling for a legislation that would compel private citizens, including government agencies and corporate organisations, to install CCTV cameras and security sensors on their facilities, Premium Times reports.
The police made the call on Wednesday at the end of their two-day retreat and conference in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
The retreat was attended by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, and about 148 other senior police officers from the rank of commissioner of police and above from all over the country.
According to a statement on Friday from the deputy spokesperson of the Force, Muyiwa Adejobi, the retreat “emphasised on intelligence as the brainbox of policing and proposed a legislation that will place an obligation on government agencies, corporate bodies, estate developers and private individuals to install CCTV cameras and security sensors on their facilities as a standard practice amongst others”
Mr Adejobi, a chief superintendent of police, said a communique which captured the proposal, had been sent to relevant authorities, including President Muhammadu Buhari’s office, the national security adviser, the National Assembly, Ministry Of Police Affairs, and the office of the Chief of Defence Staff.
The IGP, Mr Baba said officers must “embrace intelligence-driven approaches towards effective policing of the nation”.
The retreat, hosted by Governor Udom Emmanuel, was declared open by President Buhari, represented by the Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Dingyadi.
Other dignitaries who attended the retreat’s opening ceremony were Kayode Fayemi, the Governor of Ekiti State; Haliru Jika, chairman Senate Committee on Police Affairs; and Bello Kumo, chairman, House Committee on Police Affairs.
Nigeria, for years now, has been plagued by several security challenges, ranging from Boko Haram insurgency, banditry to abduction-for-ransom.
Police officers have also been target of deadly attacks, especially in the country’s South-east where the agitation for an independent state of Biafra had given rise to armed group, IPOB.
Governor Udom Emmanuel said the meeting was timely because of the current security threats all over the country.
“We are living in an age where known approaches to fighting crimes have been tested, thus necessitating the evolution of new strategies. We are living in an age and time, where criminals have reinvented their wheels of criminal enterprise; where non-state actors with no known addresses have infiltrated our space, where a neighbour may be kidnapers, or runs a terrorist cell.
“This reality calls for new strategies to take the fight to these enemies of peace and defeat them. The first step to achieving this usually starts from retreats such as the one you are having here,” Mr Emmanuel said in his opening remarks.
The governor said security is everybody’s business and therefore Nigerians should support the police and other security agencies to fight crime.
The retreat, which is supposed to be an annual gathering since it was first hosted in Lagos in 2019, could not hold in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19.
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