A human rights lawyer, Mr Femi
Falana on Friday advocated the bearing of arms by the officers of the Lagos
State Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC) to mitigate crime rates in the state
through community policing.
Falana made the case at A-Day Public
Hearing of a Bill for a Law to
Amend the Lagos State Neighbourhood
Safety Agency for the Regulation and Control of Neighbourhood Safety Corps
Activities and for Connected Purposes.
The public hearing was organised by
the Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Information, Security and
Strategy headed by Hon. Adefunmilayo Tejuosho (Mushin Constituency I)
Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria
(SAN) commended the House for being thoughtful in creating the corps, saying
that security of lives and property, remained the primary responsibility of the
government.
He called for the expansion of the
powers of the corps to carry out
functions of the police in the state
as well as to protect corps members.
According to him, the country is
under-policed and the state
government could by law create and
empower security agencies at the state level to carry out functions that may be
similar to that of the
police.
Falana said: ``My position is based
on the constitution that if I can
go to the Inspector General of
Police and apply for a licence to bear
arms and I’m granted, why can’t the
Lagos State Government not be given licences for 10,000 young men and women to
protect the rest of all? It is allowed by our law.
``If you set up an agency like this
and you want them to arrest
criminal suspect in the society, you
must arm them, otherwise their
own lives will be endangered.
``Therefore like prison officers,
civil defence officers, customs officers and others bear arms, nothing should
stop the Lagos State House of Assembly from empowering members of the
LNSC to bear arms.
``Unless we really guarantee the
security of lives and property of every citizen, we are not going to get
anything right. What the law does not want, what the law prohibited is a
situation whereby I misuse the powers given to me by law.’’
Falana urged the House to be
creative in protecting all citizens,
stressing that the Federal
Government could not protect everybody.
He commended the Lagos State
government for the state State Security Trust Fund and the creation of the
LNSC, and urged the House to be very creative and vigilant.
``We are supposed to have one police
man to 400 citizens, but right
now, only about 300, 000 policemen
and women are guiding almost 200 million people.
``Our country is under-policed, they
are ill-equipped and they are
ill-trained,’’ he added.
According to him, if there is abuse,
the law is there to deal with any
officer who becomes over-bearing and
over- zealous and violate the
right of citizens.
He said that members of the board
should be constituted by accredited representatives of civil society
organisations and the government for the agency not to be an extension of
the governor’s office.
On the proposed amendment requiring
the corps to arrest urchins and area boys, Falana urged the House to task local
governments to create employment for young men and women to ensure that they
were productively engaged.
The human rights lawyer added that
the agency should be empowered to enter uncompleted buildings to arrest people
that are engaging in illicit activities that constitute danger to the
community.
He said that officers of LNSC should
also be involved in removing out- of-school children that are roaming streets,
adding that the agency should liaise with prison services so that any prisoner
released would be monitored.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the
Board of LNSC, Mr Israel Ajao, who commended the House for the proposed
amendments, said that the agency’s advocacy programmes for the sensitisation of
communities would commence by January.
Ajao, who noted that LNSC would
bridge the gap between communities and conventional police, called for
attractive packages for board members rather than regarding their duties as
part-time.
In her welcome address, Hon.
Adefunmilayo Tejuosho, the Chairman of the Committee said that the amendment
was aimed at strengthening the relationship anong the state government, the
local government and the LSNC.
``We want our state to function
better than other states, we want the
law to be stronger, and close all
lacuna in this law.
``When we talk about policing, it
must be community-based by the
people who understand the terrain of
where they are policing,’’ she
said.
Earlier, the Speaker of the House,
Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, who was represented by the Majority Leader of the
House, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade said that the proposed amendments was to strengthen
the state security by empowering LNSC law.
Doing the overview, Agunbiade said
that the House was proposing 31
amendments to the 32 section extant
law, saying that the proposed
amendments conferred on the officers
of the safety corps power to enter, search, inspect and arrest.
He added that the amendment also
affected the function of the officers of the safety corps to embark on
aggressive awareness and sensitisation campaign on the need for the people to
be security conscious.
He said that the amendment also
required that various local government areas contribute monthly subvention to
the LNSC.
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