Okiro: Nigeria’s entire budget not enough for the police force we need

Mike Okiro, chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), says the entire budget of the country cannot be enough “to police Nigeria as it should be”.

According to Okiro, the police is grossly underfunded and lacking in manpower.

In an interview with NAN on Sunday, he said the number of police officers in the country was inadequate for the population, hence the request for the recruitment of more personnel.

The issue of paucity of funds, he said, had been one of the problems hindering the recruitment of more police officers for enhanced service delivery.

“The Nigeria Police Force is underfunded and not only in the area of manpower,” he said.

“The issue of funding is very strategic to the Nigeria Police Force. If you want to police Nigeria as it should be, the entire budget of Nigeria cannot be enough for that.”

Okiro disclosed that more than 150,000 policemen are attached to VIPs and unauthourised persons in the country.

“We cannot afford to have more than half of the population of the Police in private hands,” he said.

He said the PSC in conjunction with the Nigeria Police Force had commenced the implementation of the withdrawal of police officers but the exercise was stalled due to lack of fund.

“We could not sustain the enforcement of the order on the withdrawal of policemen attached to unqualified persons in the country because of lack of fund,” he said.

He expressed disappointment at the practice where persons who served as ministers for over 10 to 15 years still go about with police security.

Okiro said the nation cannot be battling with shortage of manpower in the force while majority of the officers would be in the service of few privileged Nigerians.