Community-Oriented Policing in Nigeria: A Focus on Adatan, Ogun State

Abstract

The increase in crime rates and the perceived lapses inherent in traditional policing style have led to the need for a change in policing style and operations in society. There has been a gradual shift from traditional policing to a people oriented policing, 'community policing'? Nigeria has chosen to be part of this paradigm shift, with all states of the federation piloting the scheme in some police stations. In Ogun state, Adatan community is one of the pilot stations in Abeokuta. The issues here are: to what extent has community policing solved crime problem in Adatan? What is the level of awareness and acceptance of this policing style among the people of Adatan? Data collection involved quantitative and qualitative techniques. The quantitative aspect involved a survey of 500 respondents, representing 0.2% of the total population of Abeokuta South LGA. The community was delibrately divided into three to reflect the unique features of the population. A simple random sampling method was used to administer questionnaires to the respondents. The qualitative side involved an in-depth interview which was conducted with seven police officers and 10 key community leaders in Adatan, all deliberately selected. An unobstrusive observational method was used to observe the general attitudes of the police and the public. Quantitative data were analysed with simple percentage and chi-square methods while the qualitative data involved manual content analysis. The research findings revealed that 29.2% of the respondents preferred community policing to the old policing style. The awareness of community policing practice in Adatan was low, with more than half of the respondents (59.8%) not aware of its practice in Adatan. Elderly men in the age bracket of 42+ participated more in community policing operations in Adatan. The study concluded that community policing is a desirable strategy for crime control and prevention in Adatan. It is recommended that community policing should be extended to other parts of Nigeria. The government should make more funds available for community policing training and operations.