South-East governors, yesterday, settled their misunderstanding with the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, over the modalities for the constitution of community police planned for the South-East geo-political zone of the country.
Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and Chairman of South-East Governors Forum stated this after a virtual meeting of the governors with the Inspector General of Police.
The governors had on Sunday rejected a proposed template for setting up community policing in the region.
The governors during its last meeting on Sunday in Énugu, expressed disappointment with the IGP for reneging on an earlier agreement they had with the police on the practice and composition of community policing for the zone They also asked the five state Houses of Assembly in the region to commence enactment of state security laws that will give legal backing to the establishment of a regional security outfit in line with its joint security programme for the zone.
But after the virtual meeting, yesterday, which also had other leaders and stakeholders from the zone in attendance, the governors and the Police IGP resolved their differences.
Speaking in Abakaliki after the meeting, Governor Umahi blamed the Commissioners of Police in the zone for the disagreement. He said: “The meeting centred on the communiqué we issued after our Sunday meeting of governors of South-East at Enugu. “We, the governors of South-East and our leaders, were the first to accept community policing because of the beautiful ingredients of community policing the IG explained to us when we had the meeting at Enugu.
“We saw that the idea in the policy would assist us, so when the CPs made a mistake by going to do the composition by themselves and asked the governors to inaugurate, we felt that something was wrong somewhere and we had to contact the IGP.
“The IGP agreed today that the CPs made a mistake. Anyone that has gone ahead to do the selection process made a mistake. That it was entirely for the governors and stakeholders to sit down and do the selection.
Today, we met again, discussed and reached an agreement.” Umahi said the IGP agreed with the position of the governors that the various community security apparati already in existence at the local government and community levels be included in the new scheme.
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