29092019 - 2023: Controversy over Pastor Tunde Bakare's prophecy on Buhari's

PAGE 10— SUNDAY VANGUARD, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
Community policing is mere
tokenism, can’t resolve
security challenges
— Odumakin, Afenifere
spokesperson
• ‘We were the ones
tutoring the police on how
to investigate Pa Fasoranti’s
daughter’s murder’
By CHARLES KUMOLU, Deputy Editor
Spokesperson for pan-Yoruba socio-political
organisation, Afenifere, Mr, Yinka
Odumakin, in this interview, reveals the
position of the regional group on the moves for
community policing by the Inspector General of
Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu. He submits that
the peculiarity of Nigeria’s security challenges
demands state police, not community police.
•Odumakin
What is the position of
Afenifere on IGP’s moves for
community policing?
The policing system has failed.
Introducing community policing
may be a good move but it is mere
tokenism that cannot address the
problem of policing in Nigeria. What
we need is state police. If we have
that, the communities would now
bring the police to the grassroots. I
read that the Sharia Police in Kano,
Hisba, destroyed thousands of
bottles of beer. Why didn’t the
Nigeria Police go to Kano to help
the Sharia Police? If those practicing
Sharia have their police, why can’t
g<strong>over</strong>nors with constitutional roles
have their police? Elected g<strong>over</strong>nors
should have the powers to have
police for their states. In America,
the states have their police, even
universities have their police.
Introducing community policing
now shows that we are still running
away from the issues. What we need
is state police. America that you just
mentioned has community policing
apart from the police departments of
the various states.
Also since the country is still
far from having the United
Nations standard of 100
policemen to 400 people, don’t
you think community policing
should be embraced?
I am not saying it is a bad idea but
not good enough for our situation.
In America, even the universities
have their police. Community
policing makes sense in their
situation but our situation is
different. In our situation where one
Inspector General of Police, IGP, is
policing the country from Abuja,
community policing is not good
enough. How can community police
work in a place where the President
would ask the IGP to go to Benue
and he would not do that? It cannot
work in such a situation. We are not
saying they should not do what they
want to do but it cannot address the
situation.
The IGP has explained the
components of community
policing and how the system
would work. What are those
things that Afenifere would
suggest to make it work?
In the South-West, we are a
peculiar people with our internal
security system. For instance, those
who kidnapped people in Osun
State last Sunday have been rescued
and Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC,
played an active role in the search
and rescue operation. When the
police had problems in stopping the
reign of Badoo Boys, it was when
How can
community police
work in a place
where the
President would
ask the IGP to go
to Benue and he
would not do
that? It cannot
work in such a
situation
OPC got involved that they were
able to arrest the boys and those
backing them. That showed the
potentials of state policing. In terms
of CCTV cameras that they want to
install, I hope they have the
infrastructure to make it work.
However, the Nigeria Police of today
that is being supervised in Abuja
cannot do the policing work alone,
we need state police. In most of the
states, the g<strong>over</strong>nors are the ones
funding the police. The equipment
that the Federal G<strong>over</strong>nment is
providing is not up to what is
required to run the federal police.
Often, they say that the state cannot
fund state police, are the states not
the ones currently funding the
federal police? Community policing
can tap into the traditional defence
mechanism in the South-West but
what we need is state police. The
issues would still be there even with
community policing.
Have the police reached out
to you people on their plans for
community policing?
We got a letter from the office of
the IGP some weeks back. They said
a team was coming to interface with
us. We gave them a date which they
said was not convenient for them
until they had a security summit in
Ibadan. They invited us to the
summit and we attended. Since then
we have not heard from them. When
we meet, we have inputs that we
would make.
It was recently reported that
the police investigating the
murder of Pa Fasoranti’s
daughter are yet to question
her driver. What can you say
about that in the light of what
the police claim to be doing in
the South-West?
That is why we are holding
everything they are saying with a
pinch of salt. If there can be such a
shoddy investigation into the death
of Funke Olakurin, it shakes our
confidence in the police. Apart from
not questioning her driver till date,
the driver of the second vehicle,
Sienna, who claimed that he was
kidnapped by the killers, came back
without any evidence of payment of
ransom. He was arrested by the
police alongside his friend when
they came back, and they have been
released. Till date, the police have
not briefed the family about the
investigation two months after the
murder. Until I spoke to the Force
Public Relations Officer, PRO, Frank
Mba, they were not ready to do any
forensic investigation on the car.
The car was released to the family in
Ore. I don’t think there is any
equipment for forensic investigation
in Ore. The car was released to the
family a day after she was killed. It
was when I called Mba to ask him
why a forensic investigation had not
been done on the car that they came
to pick the car six days after. At the
time they came, many people had
already touched the car. They have
released the car to the family again
without any report regarding their
findings. They were not ready to do
an autopsy until I spoke to Frank
Mba again. They have released the
report of the autopsy to the family.
Apart from that, they have not
briefed the family about how far they
have gone including those they
have arrested. How can such a
police force say that they are
commencing community policing?
Who would have confidence in
them?
If not for the report stating
that the police had not
questioned the driver, the
Afenifere and other Yoruba
leaders who had spoken loud
when she was murdered
became silent on the matter.
What was responsible for the
silence?
If we had been talking before now,
they would have said that we didn’t
give them time to do their work. We
have given them more than two
months without results. From day
one, we knew they were not serious
about the investigation. Yoruba has
an adage that if a child would die,
let the child die in the hands of the
mother. We gave them a long rope to
see what they would come up with.
We did that not because we are
happy but to allow them carry out
their investigation. 94-year-old Papa
Fasoranti is still grieving every day
<strong>over</strong> the killing of his daughter. It is
very painful to lose a daughter. His
major pain today is the way the
police are handling everything.
When I spoke to him last Friday, he
said he was not happy with the way
the police are handling the murder
of his daughter. I felt the agony in
the voice of that old man. If they can
handle the killing of such a high
profile person in that manner, what
is the hope of the common man?