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”The population of Nigeria is about Two Hundred Million while the strength of the Nigeria Police Force is three hundred and fifty thousand (350,000).The United Nations has prescribed the ratio of one policeman to four hundred (400) citizens for effective policing, using New York, the base of the UN, as a yard stick. When I attended a course in the US as a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) in 1985, I took the risk and boldness of a young rascal to go on a patrol with policemen in Precinct 42 Bronx, a violence prone area in New York. The US Police did not allow me to go on patrol with them because I was not covered by insurance .I had to sign a document extricating the American Government from liability if any untoward thing happened to me .I observed while on patrol with them that all the streets were well laid out and named; the houses were serially numbered. Each patrolman had a communication gadget linking him to the Precinct ( Police Station) and other patrol men; every police man had his own car; every house or apartment had a telephone. If anyone called the Police they would be there in no time.
Back home with the strength of the Police put at 350,000, the story is different. The Nigeria Police is grossly understaffed and Nigeria correspondingly under policed. Understaffing has been a gradually deteriorating phenomenon in the Nigeria Police Force. As a young officer in Rivers State, in the early 80s, or as the Divisional police officer, Uwani, Enugu, every Police Division was self –sufficient and had enough manpower to handle its own affairs – investigations, operations, riots, protests etc .Unexpectedly, by 1991, when I became AC in Ikeja, Lagos, DPOs in Lagos no longer had men to handle situations in their Divisions. I then created the Quick Intervention Unit (QIU) as an ad hoc arrangement where every DPO posted two men on a weekly basis to my office (Ops Department). These men were used to form a conventional unit that was dispatched to any DPO in distress. It had its own shortcomings.The Lagos traffic prevented the unit from arriving on time in the division to save the situation while it was hot. On my return to Lagos as CP in 1999 the manpower situation had become horrible and unbearable. DPOs were hopelessly creaking under the burden of shortage of manpower owing to the fact that there was no police recruitment for five years ranging up to 1999 and the strength of the Police was abysmally low. Based on this, President Obasanjo ordered the Police High Command to recruit forty thousand (40,000) officers every year. Unfortunately, this could not be sustained due to the dilapidated condition of the Police training Institutions and inadequate funding. So the continuity of the recruitment exercise was stalled. As if this was not debilitating enough, ten thousand (10,000) officers were laid off in 2006.I succeeded in bringing back some of them when I was appointed IGP in 2007.During my tenure as Chairman Police Service Commission I discovered to my utter consternation that once again Nigeria Police had not recruited for five years going up to 2014 and had lost fifty nine thousand (59,000) officers due to retirements, death, dismissal etc within the five years and they were not replaced. I had to write a passionate appeal to President Jonathan and he approved the recruitment of ten thousand (10,000) police officers – a tip of the ice barge. The situation has not yet ameliorated; some police posts across the country had been shut down due to shortage of manpower.
Recently, I was told of an area where there are seven secondary schools and a police post/ Division manned by seven police officers only.Can seven Police Officers deter dare devil kidnappers or abductors from carrying out their devilish plans? Can there even perform other police duties effectively.?
What beat my imagination and the aggregate imaginations of all right thinking Nigerians is the fact that many unemployed young men and women are roaming the streets in search of jobs, some of them with criminogenic tendencies resorting to crime and heightening insecurity. Yet the Nigeria Police, an agency constitutionally empowered to protect lives and property are unable carry out their assignment due to lack of manpower.
Funding
Apart from shortage of manpower one other condition that has pushed the Police to have a lackluster performance is that of funding.
The police has not been equipped as required because of scarcity of fund. As IGP, some items in the budget were not purchased due to lack of fund. Sometimes, we could not undertake any necessary or urgent budgetary program because there was no AIE or cash backing. It was based on this that the idea of Police Trust Fund, an idea that I borrowed from Governor Fashola’s Lagos State Security Trust Fund and lobbied excessively for it.It was finally approved by the Council of States based on my presentation.
The Federal Government and the States were supposed to bring a percentage of their budget as first line charge to the police. Companies and financial institutions were to bring a percentage of their after tax profit also to the Police.
The Federal Government warehoused their own contribution pending response from other areas . Surprisingly, politics came into it.Some Governors from the opposing political party went to court to stop it and it was stopped.We were looking for a way out when I retired; the matter went into a deep cooler.It is disheartening that no other IGP tried to bring up the matter again or continue from where I stopped
POLICY SOMERSAULT.
It is heart warming that IGP Adamu Mohammed Abubakar and the government of President Mohammadu Buhari, GCFR have brought back the issue of Police Trust Fund and it is now operational. The police will soon have a new lease of life and Nigeria will begin to see the Police of their dream.
Foreign mission
The Nigeria Police had been involved in Peace Keeping Operations across the globe. My first experience and knowledge of the Police going on peace mission was when, in the mid 80s, I knew that DCP E. N. Ifejika (now retired AIG) led a Nigeria police contingent to Namibia.They were assessed the best group in the midst of police officers from thirty –five (35) countries. Later another group of police officers went to Yugoslavia again on peace keeping and once again the police officers were adjudged the best.
The same story of the Nigeria Police happened in Haiti and Liberia where the Nigeria Police contingents were appreciated and honoured by the citizens of both countries. They returned to Nigeria with certificates, honours, awards and gifts. As the DIG Operations, sometimes I represented the Inspector General of Police at a conference of IGPs and Heads of Police Organisations and Armed Forces (Army, Air Force, and Navy) from various countries at the United Nations Peace Keeping Training Centre in Ghana.During the conference it was announced that the tenure of the executive of the United Nations Peace Keeping Committee had expired and new officers were to be elected.
Riding triumphantly on the back of international popularity and respect for Nigeria Police Officers, I contested for the post of Chairman Police Committee of the United Nations Peace Keeping Executive. At the end, I was elected with a land slide victory over the Heads of Police from South Africa, Egypt, and Canada, thereby, becoming the first African to hold that post.
International Organizations clamoured and sometimes demanded the services of Nigeria Police officers for international engagements or to occupy offices.
During his time the current IGP, Adamu was an elected official of Interpol, the first African to handle that post, because of his international repute as an intelligent, sound and hardworking officer.
When C.K. Aderanti ( now retired AIG) finished his tenure in United Nations as a Police Representative, the UN made a special request to retain him because of his outstanding performance. The Nigeria Police obliged.
It is sad to say that back home here in Nigeria, the story is a tragic one. Most unfortunate! Nigeria Police officers are hated, dehumanized, degraded and debased.
Even foreigners living in Nigeria join or imitate Nigerians citizens to ridicule, vilify and denigrate the Nigeria Police. An example will suffice. When I was the CP Lagos, the IGP endorsed to me for comments , a petition written against the Police by an Ambassador from one of the West European Countries.In the petition, the Ambassador noted that his mobile phone was snatched from him in his car by thieves at the Falomo Round About and the Police could not do anything despite the fact that there was a police station “a stone’s throw away “.He concluded by saying that his phone had not been recovered and that the Nigeria police was ineffective, that the IGP should do something about that.
This conduct highly infuriated me and made me loose my cool and decorum. At this period, I was under intense pressure as I was given the serious assignment of securing Lagos without the required tools to do the work and so I needed to express my anger and frustration and to heap them on somebody.
The Ambassador unwittingly offered himself as the willing and ready victim. I took him and his home country to the cleaners and I had no apologies for that. I broke all protocol and wrote directly to him. I told him that his country police and the Nigeria police went on peace keeping mission in Namibia and Yugoslavia on a common ,equal and level playing ground.
Nigeria police stood out and was judged the best contingent.Nobody mentioned his country’s police . Who authorized him to give that myopic and biased judgment that Nigeria Police was ineffective? Secondly, I told him that Falomo Road About was about one and half kilometers Onikan police station, the nearest police station.
If one and half kilometers meant “a stone’s throw away” then he lacked the knowledge of geography . With his glorified position as an Ambassador he should go back to school
Thirdly, I said I had checked with DPO Onikan who stated that the matter was not reported to the station. Could his country’s police take up a matter or recover a phone when the theft was not brought to their knowledge?
.Fourthly, I accused him of racism. I told him he wrote that kind of uncouth letter to IGP because he found himself in Nigeria a black African Country.If he was in a European country or a white people’s country could he have written to that country’s Head of Police in that manner.Finally I told him that his home country was poor and was exporting their poverty to Nigeria.
He as an Ambassador was supposed to be chauffeur –driven. The fact that his mobile phone was snatched from him in his car in a traffic hold up meant he wound down his car window, which also meant that his car was not airconditioned because his home country couldn’t afford to buy him an airconditioned car because of poverty.
His home government in her poverty had nothing to offer the world except the heavy tax on her citizens. I sent copies of the letter to his home government and Nigerian Minister for Foreign Affairs. I forwarded a copy to the IGP and said that was my comment on his endorsement to me. About a month later the Ambassador was recalled. I didn’t know if it was for this or any other reason.
The fact is that we do not value our own people, Nigeria Police, especially. A prophet is not recognized in his own country. Dame Comfort Obi pitiably sum up this attitude about us in her SOURCE MAGAZINE “we are in a country which treats its best like rags, a country which runs down its own, but turn around to claim the rejected once embraced by other countries which appreciate brilliance and hard work”
credit: sun