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The  new Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 9, Mr Hosea Karma, has recommended setting up of a standing committee on crisis resolution as panacea to check incessant host community/herdsmen clash.

 "I will encourage states in the zone to set up committees to interface between herdsmen and their host communities in order to halt incessant clashes," he said in Umuahia Friday.

 Karma told journalists that the committee existed in Anambra and had been effective in tackling the security challenges posed by suspected herdsmen in the state.

 He said that he would recommend the setting up of similar committees to the governors and security councils in Abia, Enugu and Imo.

 According to him, the committees will help to promote mutual trust and understanding as well as reduce tension between herdsmen and their host communities.

 Karma said that the committee's timely intervention, whenever there were reported cases of attacks, helped to ensure peaceful resolution of potential clashes.

 "Where herdsmen were found to have destroyed farmlands, the committee made sure that they paid appropriate compensation to the community.

 "On the other hand, where the community chose to take the law into their hands either by killing the cattle or attacking the herdsmen, they were also made to pay compensation," he said.

 He said that although the menace had not been completely wiped out in Anambra, the committee had succeeded in bringing it under control.

 The AIG, who said that he headed the committee in Anambra as the Commissioner of Police before his promotion, promised to bring his experience to bear in his new position.

 He said that he would collaborate with the governors and other critical stakeholders and security agencies to bring crime and criminality to barest minimum.

 He identified kidnapping, armed robbery, child trafficking and cultism as some of the violent crimes in the zone, and promised to "fight these crimes to a standstill".

 Karma further promised to promote community policing in line with the philosophy and ideals of the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris.

 He said that with the ongoing inauguration of the Eminent Peoples Forum (EPF) by the CPs in the states, there would be improved collaboration between the police and the communities in the zone.

 "I am going to enthrone policing with integrity and we will work with the EPF, which comprises community leaders, traditional rulers, religious leaders, town union presidents, youth leaders, among others.

 "You cannot guarantee the security and safety of the people without carrying them along," he said.

 He charged officers and men in the zone to discharge their duties with integrity and not to indulge in extorting money from members of the public and other "excesses".

 The AIG said that he had zero tolerance for corruption and that he would revive the existing mechanism for checks and balances.

 He also promised to put the necessary machinery in place to ensure adequate monitoring of the operations of the rank and file in the zone, both on the highways and office.

 He warned that the zonal headquarters would ensure that every case brought to it was investigated on its merit.

 He decried the trend where pending cases at the state level were also reported to the zonal headquarters to make the complainant the accused.

 "If an accused, instead of going to defend himself at the state, rushes to the zone with the same case, he will still be treated as the accused and not the complainant" he said.