Femi Mustapha
The Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN) Foundation has called for improved trust between the Youths and the police as a solution to the kidnapping, armed banditry and other crimes in Nigeria.
The National Coordinator of NOPRIN, Ikule Emmanuel asserted this during a two day Youth and policing Summit on Strengthening the police Reforms in Nigeria project for North West Stakeholders held in Kaduna.
According to him, over the years there have been issues of police abuse, police brutality, and the direct “beneficiaries’ of such brutality are actually the youths, and this has created a lack of trust between the police and the youth which is a gap.
Ikule added that the youths are also the ones recruited into the police Force, noting that, in many National summits on police reforms held, the youths who are the stakeholders have not been considered, and their inputs neglected, expressing dismay over such development.
“we have identified this as a gap, ” so in order to bridge that gap because youths find it hard working with the police because lack of trust and lack of working together and this is affecting the work of the police
” The Police themselves are not trusting the youths enough to work with them, as the youths are not trusting the police enough to defend them, instead they are see the police profiling them as ‘yahoo boys’ and all that, and so to address this gap, there’s need for holding policing summit like this, so that CSOs, Media practitioners and police can air out their views, on the issues that is bringing about this gap so that they can work together”.
A guest Lecturer Mrs. Dinatu Emmanuel Ishaku said Kidnapping, armed banditry and cattle rustling have become rampant in the North West leading to the loss of several lives and property amounting to hundreds of millions of Naira in the country.
She added that efforts to address the underlying drivers of insecurity will have to start small, and they will require uncomfortable trade-offs. But the alternative is to perpetuate the cycle of conflict and ephemeral truces that has plagued the northwest for the past decade. At such a precarious moment Nigeria cannot afford to continue down this path and the youth have a great role to play.