An international Non-governmental Organization, Equal Access International (Nigeria), has revealed that its project, Securing Nigerian Communities, was yielding positive results.
Mansur Kurugu, the NGO’s Senior Program Officer, disclosed this at a quarterly security consultation meeting, held in Kano on Thursday.
According to him, the initiative has led to the discovery and arrest of a bandit in Kano State.
Mr Kurugu noted that the discovery was achieved through the efforts of members of Early Warning Early Response, EWER structures established in 12 local government areas in four states of the project: Kano, Kaduna, Benue and Plateau states.
According to Mr Kurugu, the incident happened in Ungogo Local Government Area of Kano State.
He added that members of the EWER, using the training they received, became suspicious of a person occupying a rented house in the area.
“Some of the people we trained noticed that somebody was coming in and out of the house in a suspicious manner.
“They conducted an investigation and found out that that person was a bandit from Zamfara State who sustained injuries and was receiving treatment in the house.
“The instantly contacted the police and got him arrested. So, without that structure, members of the community would not even care who was in the house.
“That person could have recovered and become a problem in the community,” Mr Kurugu narrated.
Giving insight about the project, Mr Kurugu explained that it was introduced about five years ago to engage community members to be involved in the aspect of peace, safety, and security in their own communities.
The senior program officer also explained that the project had empowered community members in the four states to be able to identify and avert threats among them by working in collaboration with security agencies.
“Over period of like five years, we have been implementing a project we called Securing Nigerian Communities project in four states, two in Northwest and two in North-Central, in Northwest, we are in Kano and Kaduna, North Central, where in Benue, and Plateau.
“The whole idea is to strengthen inclusive civilian security, where community members are involved in the aspect of peace, safety, and security in their own communities, where they are able to identify trends and triggers and threats.
“They should be able to work collaboratively with security agencies both at the local and state level to be able to combat all of those issues before they become a problem.
“So, it is the whole concept of becoming proactive rather than just doing a traditional approach to security,” he explained.
Mr Kurugu pointed out that the quarterly security consultation meetings are conducted across all the four project states by bringing the EWER groups to interface with the heads of security agents for optimal performance in the duties.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that the security agencies present at the meeting include military, Police, Immigration, NSCDC, Vigilante Group, Nigeria Customs Service, among others.
