The Federal Government is seeking collaboration and technical support from the European Union (EU) for the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to enable the ecosystem achieve its target of deploying global norms and best practices.
The Minister for State Police Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim stated this during a meeting with the European team led by the European Ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador, Samuela Isopi at the Ministry in Abuja.
In a statement signed by the Deputy Director Press, Bolaji Kazeem, the Minister stated that the technical support and partnership should be in the area of addressing policy gaps and capacity building that will boost the capacity of an existing and evolving Nigeria Police Force in the country.
She said the Renewed Hope Agenda has eight components which has peace and security being one of them noting that the Ministry has a lot of targets and the need for collaboration with the EU in the area of reforms, capacity building, and community policing that will help to curb transnational crimes for collective achievements.
“What we are looking at is the community-based policing with intelligence-led and technology-driven, that is the face of every police force globally, the path we like to go, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation ( EUROPO) has a lot of capacity in that area and if we work together, we will achieve a lot.
“I am seeking every support that can be for the Ministry to achieve the Renewed Hope Agenda which has policing components and none of them can work without it, we are harmonizing various police reforms that are in existence, analyzing why they are not fully implemented, and coming up with what we can achieve within 2-3 years,” she said.
Earlier, the European Ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador Samuela Isopi said the EU will continue to support all Nigeria relevant agencies that are involved in improving the coordination of policing in the areas of training and capacity building.
She added that the European Union has a good collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force noting that they work together within the framework of human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. We have been doing capacity and supporting coordination at national, regional, and international levels.
Isopi pointed out that the EU has a new migration programme which will be signed next week stressing that the agreement is essential because it is a political tool to do more in other areas.
“We are preparing a new phase of our program to end gender-based violence and we need your cooperation and support to work together.
“On transactional crimes, it is interesting that we can collaborate. We help to establish collaboration between Nigeria institutions and European entities and reaching out to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (EUROPO) and the possibility of signing a memorandum of understanding” Isopi stated.
