By Tony Adibe
A non-governmental organisation, Rule of Law and Empowerment Initiative (PWAN), has organised a town hall meeting for media practitioners in the Southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria with an aim to deepening their knowledge and understanding of the new Nigeria Police Act.
This is in order to create a massive and aggressive awareness among Nigerians on the new Police Act of 2020, according to the non-governmental organisation. PWAN explained that the town hall meeting became imperative because many Nigerian citizens, including a good number of journalists, were not aware of their rights under the 2020 Police Act.
Addressing participants, who came from across the five Southeast states during a 1-day media Town Hall meeting on “Human Rights, the Police Act 2020 and Regulations” held at the BON Hotel Platinum in Enugu , the Executive Director of PWAN, Ms. Kemi Okenyodo, said the programme was designed to keep the participants abreast with the current Police Act.
Ms Okenyodo, who was represented on the occasion by the monitoring and Evaluation Officer of PWAN, Mrs. Nkem Okereke, said that there was a significant disconnect between police operations and community expectations.
According to her, the program “seeks to address critical gaps in the understanding and application of the Police Act 2020 and the accompanying regulations within the Nigerian Police Force .”
She further said: “This will improve the knowledge of the police officers and citizens of recent changes and reforms within the police force and further improve human rights application as contained in the Act.
“Through the town hall meeting today which is specifically for the media houses and journalists, we aim to promote awareness of citizens’ rights under the Police Act 2020, allowing us to address the gap in public knowledge regarding human rights and the provisions of the Police Act 2020.
“Many citizens remain unaware of their rights under the Act, and as a result, may lack the confidence to hold the police accountable for misconduct or abuses of power.”
Comrade Okechukwu Nwanguma of the Rule of law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), Lagos, who made a presentation on the new Police Act, focused on the need for media practitioners to be acquainted with the Act in order to help in sensitising members of the public.
Nwanguma, whose presentation was tagged, “Promoting Awareness of The Nigeria Police Act: The Role of The Media,” said that the media have a very vital role of promoting and creating awareness, adding that “without the media creating the awareness, it would lead to the kind of problems we witness daily.”
He said further that the media needed to monitor the behavior or conduct of the police and know whether their behavior “is in line with the Police Act.” On the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) , he said the Act seemed to be a novel idea, which has enhanced investigative journalism in Nigeria.
“This is one area that has put the media in collusion course with government agencies. No thief wants to be apprehended. Unfortunately, thievery and corruption have acquired a level of sophistication to the extent that the perpetrators do it with impunity,” he said, adding, however, that “the only way for evil to thrive in a society is for all good men to stand aloof and do nothing. We must continue to talk about these things”.
