By Enyeribe Ejiogu
National Chairman of the Police Community Relations Committee, Ambassador Faruk Maiyama, has charged the executive committee of the PCRC, Zone 9 headquarters, Umuahia, the Abia State capital, to expedite efforts to reverse the damage done by the long and tortuous circumstances that frustrated the smooth transition to the new leadership in the zone.
Maiyama gave the charge during the inauguration of the zonal executive headed by Mr. Chima Chukwunyere, whose sterling performance as the Imo PCRC chairman had earned him a national award.
His words: “I am confident that with Chima Chukwunyere, the Zone will hit the ground running and you will take your pride of place in the comity of PCRC soon. We expect nothing less than success and good reports. We expect Chima to replicate what he did at Imo State PCRC that earned him a Goldstar Award on April 4, 2016 in Abuja.”
According to him, community collaboration with the police begins with the community understanding their stakeholder role in their own security. Maiyama, therefore, called for continuous, consistent and intensive advocacy and sensitisation meetings aimed at enlightening community folks on their place and role in the paradigm shift to community policing.
Earlier in his address, Mr. Chukwunyere noted that the inauguration of the zonal executive committee marked what he described as “the senseless and avoidable controversy that retrogressively ravaged the Zone 9 PCRC for years and which made it difficult for the PCRC as an organization to exist in the Southeast region of the country.”
He promised to take all necessary steps to draw members of the public closer to the police vis-à-vis the fight/crusade against criminal, hoodlums/bandits and criminology, assuring that together, the PCRC will act as one single indivisible family to fight crime in the Southeast.
He also commended the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 9, AIG Okon Ene, for standing with the people of the three component states of the zone, namely, Abia, Ebonyi and Imo to inaugurate the new committee.