Police have been advised to pay attention to their internal challenges preventing them from performing their duties effectively.

Some lawyers have called on the Nigerian police leadership to pay more attention to the many internal challenges that prevent the institution from effectively discharging its constitutional responsibility for maintaining public order.

They provided advice during the Southwest edition of a one-day workshop on geopolitical security awareness on policing through intelligence and community partnership.

They suggested that the police must establish effective relations with the public in order to obtain their cooperation in the fight against crime.

Former Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions Fola Arthur-Worrey, who was the keynote speaker on the occasion, expressed concern over the poor state of intelligence collection and management in the area. the security of the country.

Weakness, Arthur-Worrey said, has allowed many criminally-minded Nigerians to change locations and commit similar crimes without the police knowing their criminal history, even though they have been arrested and prosecuted by the police. police elsewhere in the country. country.

“We need to develop strong internal intelligence collection and management. The police should have criminal records of all citizens and residents and there should be information sharing between all security services in the country, ”he said.

He urged the presidency to propose an executive decree that will empower the police to use biodata information collected by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the voter register and that gathered by the Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC, to sim l ‘registration as a resource to fight crime.

Human rights lawyer and one of the speakers, Bamidele Aturu, stressed the need for the country to have a social security system to deal with the growing problem of unemployment, which he identified as partly responsible for the high crime rate.

He noted that the government must close the widening gap between the lowest and highest incomes.

In order to control armed robberies, the lawyer said the constitution should be amended to allow more Nigerians to carry guns in self-defense.

Inspector General of Police, IG, Mohammed Abubakar, who was represented by Abdurahman Akano, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in the Southwest, called for a paradigm shift in the old management order of the security to a new order that would fully involve the police, citizens and government.

He noted that the realities of modern policing require strong relationships between all stakeholders.

The IG said the workshop, which drew participants from the six states of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Lagos, was designed to take the pulse of members of police functions and others.