Jennifer Ugwueke
The Senate has commenced the process of enacting a law that seeks to legalise the activities of various hunter groups in the Country.
The bill titled: “The Nigerian Hunter’s Council of Nigeria Bill, 2020” which has scaled second reading was sponsored by Senator Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti South).
Olujimi, who spoke to reporters yesterday, in Abuja, said that the law when passed, would enable hunters to provide Community policing, maintain law and order and offer Community service to citizens.
She said that the law would ensure that hunters work with other security operatives to bring stability to the nation’s security operations.
She said that the proposed law would make the hunters work in synergy with other security agencies to bring stability, security and peace of mind to the people.
Olujimi said, “Efficient policing requires information sharing between the civil populace and the security agencies.
“That is why it is said that security is everybody’s business. When passed into law, the Hunters Council Bill will ensure that farmers will go to their farms, plant their seeds, return home without fear.
“Traders will also carry out their trading and take the proceeds to the bank with the assurance that nobody would waylay them on the way.
“Most neighborhood crimes are more often perpetrated by offenders who reside near the victims which shows that crime is primarily a local problem that can be best solved locally using native or local intelligence.
“The bill seeks to control and prevent crime from within the Community as doing that from outside the Community entails recruiting strangers who might not be familiar with crime terrains as well as criminals in the Community.
“The recent development has shown that this new wave of crime has been taken to the forest and combating it requires the establishment of an institution that is conversant with our forests.
“The Hunters Council stands out on this; after all, they have over times recorded tremendous feet taking the fight to kidnappers and bandits in their hideout in the forest across the Country.”
