By John Bassey, Gusau
In an unprecedented declaration, perhaps by any security chief in the crises-ridden North-West, new Commissioner of Police (CP), Zamfara State Police Command, Ahmed Muhammad Bello has demonstrated his preparedness for the task by vowing that within 60 days (two months), he will recover all communities presently under the control of bandits.
With the confidence of a focused and driven top public officer, Bello explained that his vision is to see to the restoration of peace and stability in the bleeding State, scarred by years of terrorist-triggered bloodfests, kidnappings and displacement of persons.
Once done, the CP added, the ensuing new peace in the State will unleash opportunities for investment required to better the lot of society.
He stated these in an exclusive interview with People&Politics at the Police Headquarters in Gusau, the state capital.
The CP expressed readiness to partner sister security agencies, the media, critical stakeholders and members of the public in combating insecurity in the state.
Bello said: “We all know the existence of violence, crime and criminality in the state and how it has paralyzed both political, economic and spiritual activities.
“Security becomes the paramount focus in this environment because without security, movement to places of interest will be obstructed. Zamfara is a 90% grievance society, as it is now.
“We are aware of the fact that in a couple of months there is going to be rainy season; majority of these farmers will soon commence farming activities and members of the criminal network take advantage of the terrain to unleash havoc on the generality of the citizenry.
“As at last week, we have studied the terrain. Currently we are reinvigorating our security architecture with the view to redeploy personnel and ensure maximum compliance is in place.
“The vision and the mission is to secure public safety and security while at the same time ensure adherence to compliance, taking the issue of gender inclusivity into consideration, and ensure the art of policing with human face as overall objective.
“Whatever we do here, we all are public servants and we must have to be accountable, carrying the public along in all we do and serving with integrity.
“The issue of community engagement becomes imperative for building trust by working together with the members of the public.
“If you are doing the right thing and the public is not aware of what you are doing, you will end up creating chances where you may be negatively misinterpreted, thwarting your efforts; but carrying them along with you changes the narratives, creating opportunity for cohesion and mutual understanding.
“Another important thing is carrying along all critical stakeholders from the community of operations, beginning from the planning stage, implementation and information sharing. It is important to note that information mismanagement is one of the greatest problems we are facing in this state; everyone should not be giving out information. It is better to remain silent over unverified matters than saying things that will mislead the populace.
“We prioritize active policing based on intelligence gathering. Information must be sanctified and the identity of the source must be adequately protected.
“Information must be handled on the basis of professionalism and once it is processed into an intelligence, must be timely disseminated to appropriate area for what we call proactive policing.
“We prefer proactive measures to policing, so we will never give chances to disruption which will lead to total failure.”
Harping on inter-agency synergy, the CP was equivocal that such kernel was sine qua none to success.
His words:”Another important thing to note is that the defence and security officers in the state must work together, synergizing and partnering together in the best interest of the state.
“We are legally positioned to bear our firearms openly, unlike the insurgents; only at ungoverned spaces would they move freely with their weapons.
“We assure members of the public that we will make all sieged spaces governable by being able to carry the war to the criminals’ hideout.
“Once again, what made criminality succeed in the state is what we describe as broken windows tools, meaning that there are things that security operatives would have done but they are not doing it. Failure to consider it and take proactive measures to it gives the criminals chances to afflict the people.”
CP Bello assured that the Command will do everything possible to give criminals no chance to attack the people in the next 60 days.
Bello arrives with a rich CV of accomplishments, having also served in Akwa Ibom, Borno and several other states even as expectation is sky-high in Zamfara State that, perhaps, finally, the top cop to strip bandits of their aura of invincibility has come.
*PHOTO CAPTION: CP Bello.
