Wilfred Afolabi, the Ondo State Commissioner of Police, has declared that intelligence gathering and firmness remain the cornerstone to effective policing, saying security challenges across the State can only be tackled with effective policing.
Afolabi, who stated this on Tuesday in Akure while declaring open a three-day training on intelligence gathering for 160 personnel drawn from all the Police divisions in the State, themed: “Basic Intelligence Course”, said; “what I can tell you is that we are laying a long-lasting foundation which will go a long way to address the security challenges we are facing today.”
He aadded, “Intelligence gathering is one of the most important sections that is instrumental to breakthrough when it comes to policing and it’s so unfortunate that it’s one aspect that is so neglected.
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“When I was the Assistant Commissioner of Police, OC Intelligence, Lagos, It gave me the opportunity to know that wherever I find myself, I should pursue the subject of intelligence gathering holistically. So, what we see happening today did come by accident. And to put the icing on the cake, it falls in line with the agenda of our Inspector General of Police, IGP, Kayode Egbetokun’s agenda.
“The IGP too, feels so concerned about the subject of intelligence and just two weeks ago, he was in Ilorin, Kwara State to revamp the intelligence school. Part of his agenda, too is on capacity building because we can’t be talking about professionalism, and then we exclude training. The catalyst that brings out professionalism is training and capacity building. And you will discover that since I arrived that has been my focus.
“You may not see the effects in the shortest time because training has what they call long-lasting effect now, it may be when I finally leave this place, but one thing I can tell you is that we are laying a long-lasting foundation which will go a long way to address the security challenges we are facing today.
“When I did what they call system analysis, I discovered that there was nothing like intelligence when I arrived here.”
The CP, therefore, said the event would go a long way in addressing the spontaneous reactions of crimes, including kidnapping ransom, murder, arson, cultism, and other forms of violent criminality in the state.
