By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
To ensure a flawless execution of Safety and Security duties during next year’s TotalEnergies Africa Cup Of Nations (AFCON) tagged ‘Cameroon 2021’, the hardworking Head of CAF Safety and Security Department, Dr. Christian Emeruwa on Monday organised the first-ever CAF Safety and Security Workshop for Team Security Officers and Team Liaison Security Officers in preparation for the tournament.
Speaking exclusively to Prompt News after the workshop, Dr. Emeruwa who hosted the virtual meeting said the idea is to educate Team Security Officers and Team Liaison Security Officers before hand, what their duties are when the competition starts.
According to him: “CAF is blazing the trail in this type of workshop to ensure that there are synergy between Team Security Officers of the 24 teams that coming to the competition in Cameroon and Team Liaison Security Officers from the host nation who will be attached to the visiting countries teams”.
Explaining further, the former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Integrity Officer/ Security Committee Secretary stated that no other Confederation in the world has organised this workshop which he said will help to prevent any safety and security lapses during the games in Cameroon next year.
Said he: “As earlier postulated, this is the first time CAF will be organising this type of workshop and I am saying CAF, possibly, this might be the first time this workshop is being organised anywhere in the world, for Team Security Officers and Team Liaison Security Officers in preparation for a big tournament”.
The CAF Safety and Security Czar disclosed that every team that qualified for Cameroon 2021 next year, is condemned to nominate a Team Security Officer who will accompany the team to Cameroon and when they arrive, as part of big security plans, CAF will assign them Team Security Liaison Officers who are Cameroonians.
“So the Workshop today (Monday) was to spell out the roles and responsibility of the Team Security Officer that will come with the teams from various countries as well as the roles and responsibility of the Team Liaison Security Officers that will be assigned to the teams from Cameroon”, he revealed.
Dr. Emeruwa also stated that both officials were through the Workshop exposed to the kind of relationship expected of them and the chain of communications in the event that there are issues to be raised to CAF.
According to him: “more importantly, the essence of the workshop is to promote synergy between all the components of the Safety and Security Unit involved in the AFCON”.
“To let each officer understand their roles, to us let them understand their boundaries and to let them know their duties so that we will not have any conflict in the course of anyone performing their role during the AFCON”, Dr. Emeruwa concluded.
He however expressed his appreciation to all those that made the Workshop a success.
