Macabre Dimensions of Crimes and Insecurity in Nigeria and the Imperatives of Community Policing

Abstract

The paper focuses on community policing, a recent concept taken to as additive to law enforcement which has become everyone’s allegorical remedy for policing problems in the global system. The concept as an agenda for policing reform, has received numerous attentions, having received scholarly debates in various. In Sub-Saharan African region, and most especially Nigerian state where issues of crimes and insecurity have taken different dimensions, there have been agitations and a need to get an alternative to security structure in the country. Officers of the Nigeria Police are conspicuously overwhelmed in the discharge of their fundamental duties, there is, therefore, the need for community policing to complement their efforts in the maintenance of internal security and protection of lives and property. Therefore, this study interrogates the factors aiding the surge of crimes and ineffective policing in Nigeria, and also examines the merits derivable in subscription to the community policing viewpoint. The study gathered its data from secondary sources. The study in its findings, reveal that: a disconnect between the people and government, interagency rivalry, absence of intelligence gathering on the part of the security agencies, non-prosecution of violence perpetrators, amongst others, aid the surge of crimes and ineffective policing in the state. It as well argues that community policing would definitely go a long way in reversing the current state of insecurity for good in Nigeria. The paper, in its recommendations, submits that both the police and the public should jettison the rigid notion of rivalries between them, and should cultivate the force of togetherness and become partners in the course of securing lives and property in the society.