Impact of Security Synergy Between the Police and Community Policing on the Constitutionally Guaranteed Rights in Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
The escalation of criminal activities in recent times in Nigeria has necessitated the invention of a new approach to crime control and prevention. Ordinarily, the police are saddled with the responsibility of crime prevention and control.
However, the high rate of violent crimes, political thuggery, kidnapping, bombing, vandalism, prostitution and corruption has led to the adoption of community policing strategy in most localities to supplement the efforts of the Nigerian Police in combating crimes.
Community policing is a strategic effort at co-opting and utilizing the people to prevent crime among the people by the people themselves. It is therefore the position of this study that in this synergy between the police and community policing strategy fundamental rights of the people have been grossly violated.
The methodology adopted in this work is descriptive and analytical. The dissertation describes the philosophical foundation, organization and management of community policing.
It also analyses the implications of the adoption of community policing on the components of the criminal justice system.
The study concludes that police is confronted with numerous challenges which if not tackled will hamper their work and leave the citizenry at the mercy of recidivists. However, the introduction of community policing outfits appears to have brought hope in crime control and prevention.
INTRODUCTION
In the discourse of security in Nigeria, Okorie, Jega, Salawu, Onyishi, Ezeoha, and Lewis have identified several causes of security crisis in Nigeria that pose grave consequences to national development. Chief among them is ethno-religious conflicts that have claimed many lives in Nigeria.
By ethno-religious it means a situation in which the relationship between members of one ethnic or religious and another of such group in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society is characterized by lack of cordiality, mutual suspicion and fear, and a tendency towards violent confrontation.
Since independence, Nigeria appears to have been bedeviled with ethno-religious conflicts. Over the past decades of her Nationhood, Nigeria has experienced a palpable intensification of religious polarization, manifest in political mobilization, sectarian social movements, and increasing violence.
Ethnic and religious affiliations determine who gets what in Nigeria; it is so central and seems to perpetuate discrimination. The return to civil rule in 1999 tends to have provided ample leverage for multiplicity of ethno-religious conflicts.
As part of the social contract which the state has the obligation to fulfil for exercising the power which belongs to the people, the government is expected to provide adequate security for the citizens.
Consequently, the Nigerian government has set up various security agencies for both the internal and external protection of the citizens. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria underscores this when it declares: that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.
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StudentsandScholarship Team.
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