EVEREST EZIHE writes that the recent appointments and training of Constables as members of Community Policing is brewing trouble in so many communities in Imo State as HRM Eze Jude Mbamara of Obibi Ochasi ancient kingdom in Orlu Local Government Area is raising alarm of insecurities based on alleged faulty process of the recruitment and called on the state government for serious rethink.
Eze Mbamara who is Igwe Ozurumba the10th and Clan Head of Ochasi land in Imo state disclosed this in Owerri over the weekend while briefing news men .
He accused the state government of been insincere in according respect to the constitutional role of Traditional Rulers as the Chief Security Officers of their various autonomous communities.
According to him “it’s an insult after the state government told the traditional rulers to select 8 members of their subjects for community policing based on credibility and integrity and submit same to Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) of their area who will in turn submit same to the State Commissioner of Police for ratification and sending for training, surprisingly, the same government later used their political aides in local government areas to do the same assignment in which they took only their allies and cronies at the detriment of the traditional rulers sincere and patriotic list” he complained.
Eze Mbamara informed that from fillers he got that most of the people the government agents recruited were political thugs that aided criminal activities in their areas and most of them don’t even know their traditional rulers nor can their traditional ruler vouch for them.
He insisted that most of the people recently trained and given uniforms may soon constitute security threat to most of their communities while lamenting that as a result of the alleged faulty recruitment process that members of the community policing will equally find it difficult to respect the traditional rulers as well as taking directives from them.
According to Eze Mbamara “Am calling on the State Government to immediately make a public statement stopping these people they sent out for training in Oji and Nekede Police Colleges to stop parading themselves as Constables of Community Policing as traditional rulers were not carried along in their recruitment and appointment. If they continued to parade themselves, it may likely instigate chaos, conflicts, insecurities and breach of peace in many autonomous communities and the state at large as most of the subjects are complaining bitterly” he predicted.
The first class traditional ruler also faulted the state government earlier directive of the Ward Councillors liaising with Royal Fathers so as to harmonize the names generated by the political aides before submitting which he described as” arrant nonsense”.
He further carpeted the state government for allegedly not realizing the traditional and customary importance given to traditional rulers asking “how can you equate a traditional ruler with a politically appointed Councilor ?”
Eze Mbamara further lamented that traditional rulers in the state expected that during their just concluded two days security seminar in which the Nation’s Inspector General of Police was in attendance that they expected the state government and the Police boss to have said something in that regards but they allegedly maintained conspiracy of silence on the burning issue.
