Arase made the request during a meeting with members of several CSOs at the PSC Corporate Headquarters, Jabi, Abuja on Friday.
This support and assistance, he said, could come in the form of training and retraining programmes of both personnel of the PSC and the Nigeria Police Force, the spokesperson for the commission, Ikechukwu Ani, revealed in a Friday night statement obtained by our correspondent.
“We cannot effectively deliver on our mandate without the corresponding support of the civil society, as well as you helping us with logistics that will aid us in carrying out our functions.
“The police force is ours, it is not impossible to build a police force of our aspirations; it only requires involvement, participation, collaboration, assistance and support. Please, get involved,” Ani quoted Arase as saying.
Concerning the feud between the PSC and the NPF, he said, “The embarrassing scenario between the commission and the NPF was informed and fuelled by preconceptions, misconceptions and prejudices against each other, founded on mutual distrust and suspicion.
“In the raging disconcertment and belligerency, it is the Nigerian people that suffer as neither the PSC nor the NPF can function effectively in delivering on its mandate without the support and cooperation of the other, especially when both institutions that are supposed to be mutually-reinforcing are now at daggers drawn.”