New Kaduna Police Commissioner Austin Iwar vows to tackle kidnapping, other crimes in the state
KADUNA, NORTHWEST NIGERIA
New Commissioner of Police for Kaduna State Command, Austin Iwar on Thursday promised residents of the state that, his leadership will come up with a strategy to address the menace of crime especially kidnapping in the state.
The former CP in Gombe State who sated this during his maiden media briefing and deliberation with Divisional Police Officers held at the Police Officers Mess Kaduna said, he was aware of rate of crime in the state but vowed to bring it to its knees with the support of locals.
To achieve this, the police boss said, he has to first work on deployment of his men in such a way that, 80 percent of them would be deployed to fight crimes in the state while the remaining 20 percent would be deployed to offices with a view to ensuring safety of lives and property in the state, “in areas I have worked, I have maintained policy that 80 percent of personnel will be deployed to fight crime”.
According to him, “we will develop strategies to deal with security challenges by involving our communities through partnership. There will be massive community engagement. It will focus on but not restricted to crime management.
“Areas that have redundant personnel, we will push them into the streets. As time goes on, there will be visibility of more policemen on the roads. There has been so much of reactive policing. We want to balance that with active policing.
“In the area of kidnapping, what we can do is to mount massive campaigns to tell people how to avoid being kidnapped and what to do when kidnapped.
“The PRO unit will be strengthened because media has a key role to play. We will reach out to legitimate representatives of the people. We are not to task the communities but to partner in crime prevention.
“We will partner all security agencies in ensuring synergy. All police officers must partner all security agencies. Area commands are under firm instruction to deploy patrol teams. Sensitization campaigns would also be employed.
“Providing security to the people will be captured in programmes and we will partner worship centres, schools etc in achieving that”, he told the gathering.
On how the public can prevent themselves from kidnappers and others violent crimes, he assured of operating an open door policy as well as organising awareness campaigns and security education for the public in no distant time.
“I will maintain an open door policy to improve safety and security. Every policeman and woman has a role to play. We Will lead the command through a management team. Personnel must exhibit high discipline and standards at all times. Indiscipline will be meted out with sanction and punishment at all times,” he said.
POSTED BY EDITOR