Stakeholders, including the police and officials of the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) have blamed the nation’s security challenges on the unwillingness of Nigerians to provide useful information to security agencies on security breaches in their localities.
The stakeholders, including the Kwara State Commissioner of Police, CP Tuesday Assayomo, the National Chairman of PCRC, Dr, Faruq Mai-Yamman and Kwara State’s Chairman of PCRC, Alhaji Adebayo Lawal, spoke at a one-day capacity building seminar on digital information for PCRC members in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital.
Declaring the seminar open, Kwara state Commissioner of Police, CP Tuesday Asayamo, blamed the prevailing security breaches in the country on the failure of Nigerians to volunteer useful information that could assist the police in fighting crimes, lamenting that unlike in the western world where citizens provide information to police, Nigerians always develop cold feet in rendering information to the police.
Represented by the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration, Oyeleye Adegboyega, Assayomo said: “Security problems are created by the society and the best way to tackle them is for the members of the society to assist the police with useful information.
“The task of maintaining peace and security is an herculean one that cannot be handled by the police alone. The police is not large enough to be everywhere, we cannot be in every home and every street but Nigerians are everywhere and we recognised that without the input of the public, security will fail.”
National Chairman of CPRC, Dr. Faruq Mai-Yaman in his address, charged members of the committee to “source and provide intelligence information that will assist the police in fighting crimes”.
He also charged them to gain the confidence of the police for the public and promote the image of the Nigeria Police Force as an institution, adding that the PCRC was established 38 years ago to “work with the police by providing them with information that will enhance peace and security”..
Earlier, the state chairman of PCRC, Alhaji Adebayo Lawal, had said that the members of the committee would continue to help the police with credible information that would ensure peace and security in the state.
