Former Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, has disclosed that over 200,000 police officers are attached to Nigerian Politicians.
Jomog News Nigeria reports that a former Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase has disclosed that over 200,000 police officers are attached to Nigerian Politicians.
However, he faulted the practice which he described as “policing the elites against policing security spaces.”
Arase lamented that the police were not policing the security space in Nigeria.
He spoke at the second edition of the national dialogue series of the Political Leadership and Training Institute (POLA) of former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, held in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital. Daily Trust reports.
“We have about 400,000 police personnel in Nigeria, and 200,000 of those officers are with the political elites, said Arase.
“What we are doing in this country is that we are policing the elites, we are not policing security spaces, and this is an issue we have to look into.”
Arase attributed the challenges facing the police to lack of political will to implement reports of many reforms done in the past.
He said since 1999, Nigeria has had at least four police reforms from committees set up by past leaders “but unfortunately, none of the reports of the reforms has been implemented.
The reports are just there gathering dust”.
A retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), Tunji Alapini, on his part, also lamented the deplorable state of training facilities at police colleges across the country, saying most of them are unfit to train human beings.
“The environment that police personnel are trained in is no longer desirable, and this is one of the major reasons for the poor state of the Nigeria Police Force. If you are trained in an environment which is not conducive, when you come out, you apply what you have been trained on members of the public. This is what we call garbage in garbage out,” Alapini said.
Senator Ehigie also contributed by calling for the abolition of the quota system in the recruitment of police personnel, stressing that recruitment of police officers should be based on merit and not lobbying.
