The Trust Nigerians Have In The Nigeria Police Force Must Be Improved – Fayemi

Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi has come out to say that there is a need for a reform mechanism that would improve citizens’ trust in the Nigeria Police.

He recently revealed this during a stakeholders’ forum on community policing, involving heads of security agencies, public servants, politicians, civil society organisations, youth and women organisations, heads of government institutions, trade and professional groups in Ado-Ekiti at the weekend.

According to him, without reforming the force, community policing will not be achieved in Nigeria, and that will be very bad for the country.

He then begged the Federal Government not to despise recommendations made by the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up in the wake of the #ENDSARS protests with special attention on getting justice and compensations for victims of police abuse.

His words, “A large number of our people still don’t see police as their friends. So it seems to me that an important way we can get that trust is through police reform. We cannot simply hope to achieve the intent of community policing without police reforms.

“The Federal Government should take seriously the reports of the judicial panel of inquiry that has been set up in the aftermath of the #ENDSARS protests. If we are going to move forward we have to look backwards and ensure that our people that have serious issues with police are properly compensated and their pains recognized.

“There is nothing wrong with the Nigeria Police today that has not been subject of multiple reports of many committees which the IG and myself participated. There are many high-level reports on police reforms including two constitutional conferences.

“The tragedy is that the recommendation of this committee and that of the constitutional conference had largely been left unattended to. We need to look at those reports bring them back to life and base on those reports agreed on an actionable agenda that is time-bound for the use of the country as a whole and for the enhancement of police reforms in Nigeria.”