The Commissioner of Police in Ogun State, Kenneth Ebrimson, has disclosed that the recruitment of special constables in the state would commence this week.
Ebrimson said the recruitment which is aimed at fighting crimes at the grassroots, is part of efforts to encourage community policing in the state.
Ebrimson said this on Wednesday, after the inauguration of the new state chairman of the Police Community Relations Committee, Samson Popoola.
He added that the recruitment would commence shortly after arrangements have been finalised at the Area Command, Local Government Areas and the divisional levels, this week.
The Commissioner noted that the constables would be trained on police operation and would be given police uniform, although without badge.
According to him, the constables would assist the command to prevent criminal activities, gives the command intelligence report and resolve crisis among members of the public.
He said, “All other strata of the community policing, the Area Command, the Local Government Area and the divisional level will be concluded without any doubt this week.
“Thereafter we will now start with a pilot scheme of the recruitment of the constabulary who will now form the bulk of the community policing practitioners at the community level to assist the police in prevention, information and intelligence gathering and conflict resolution.
“So, in no distance time when all these level of advisory committee of the community policing has finalised we will now see the next level will now be the consolidation of the recruitment of the constabulary and sending them to a modicum training of the police operation which will translate to bringing them in as part of our partners and remember also part of the concept.
“The idea is to give them a sense of belonging is that when recruited they will be given the police uniform but the only difference will be the signal, the badge, so that one can give them that sense of belonging and they will now see the police as our police not their police.”
The CP applauded the PCRC’s contributions and support towards fighting crime in the state, and urged members of the PCRC to further corporate with the police command to make the state free of criminal activities.
In his remarks, the new chairman of PCRC pledged that his administration would transform the community policing in the state.
He said “We want to bring out that innate African security consciousness back to our people so that they will be able to work with us. They will be able to see police as one of their people, they will be able to see police as their own people.
