Police funding and the challenge of corruption

BY BUKAR RAHEEM

The expression, “beta soup, na money kill’am“ is a pidgin cliché common in Nigerian communities. By interpretation, it means poor investment in anything will yield poor results.

The Nigerian Police Force (NPF) is undoubtedly a very sensitive security agency saddled with the responsibility of public law and order. Its responsibilities are enormous and measured in tandem with the population of any nation.

However, Nigerians are people of many complexities. The question which often drops on the lips of victims of robbery or any other crime is “where are the police?” And people would fume at them for belated arrival at the scene of robbery, probably because of a broken down operational vehicle or lack of logistics to actively respond to distress calls. Thereafter, Nigerians would loudly grumble and complain about the progressive degeneration of the police.

In the haste to condemn, no heart is mercifully touched to look at reasons for their poor outing. No one is concerned that the number of police personnel is inadequate; people hardly bother about the motivation of the Police to function optimally in providing security.

Police welfare packages are very poor; no incentive of any kind, as most expect Nigerians benefit in their workplaces. Nigerians do not look at the dilapidated condition of Police residential barracks, or acute shortage of office accommodation and poor furnishing of existing offices.

What is often bandied in public space about the Police is their penchant for corruption and dishearteningly, it becomes a strong instrument of the damnation of a whole institution. The Police are painted as incurably defective in the biased perception of some Nigerians, but no one cares to lead the campaigns to make them better. The Nigeria PoliceReform Trust Fund Bill has gathered moisture on the shelves of the national assembly (NASS) for ages- since 2008.

Even in the Eighth NASS, Olamide Johnson Oni again re-sponsored the bill, crafted to fund for the police in his words, “communication and information technology infrastructure, patrol/operational vehicles, crafts and other facilities; provision of full complement of arms/ammunition, riot control equipment, protective gears, armoury and firing/shooting range; forensic technology/scientific aids for investigation, among others.”

Even the voices of the motley of civil society organisations in Nigeria have been muffled. They have not deemed necessary to pressurize the NASS to pass the bill legally supporting reforms in NPF, a pointer that Nigeria knows their shortcomings.

The interest is all about dwelling on mundane issues. The other day, the Senate President Bukola Saraki-led Senate tinkered with the idea of passing a bill that would rename the NPF to “Nigerian Police.” And In the wisdom of the Senate, the word “Force” in identifying Nigerian cops is responsible for their unfriendliness or harshness to the civil populace. That is the extent of the hypocrisy! Instead of looking at the lawful means of reforming and funding the place, the attention has inexplicably drifted to change in nomenclature of the Police as an institution.

But no matter the extent Nigeria keeps playing to the gallery about issues concerning the Police, the problems would never disappear unless the right remedies are applied. So, to keep frowning at the Policeman marooned in a local community in dehumanizing conditions for allegedly extorting motorists and commuters or accusing Police officers of collecting bribes is not the way out.

Any man whose dignity is mindlessly flattened, he fights back naturally and ferociously. When the first step is wrong, it is unconscionable for Nigeria to fault the second step. Can Nigeria proudly assert that it has met the personnel and funding requirements’ of the NPF? The answer cannot be in the affirmation.

Some Nigerians are not aware of the severity of the problem of NPF and that’s why it excites them more to criticize and malign, than proffer workable solutions. But inside the massive Louis Edet House, a structure housing Nigeria’s Police Force Headquarters,” Abuja, any IGP presides over a large empire of armed men and women, further split into smaller administrative units.

The current IGP, Ibrahim Idris, is overseeing a NPF populated by 300, 000 men and women; comprising 36 states commands, 12 Zones/ 7 administrative organs and 1,300 police stations across the country. As massive as it appears, it still falls short of the United Nations (UN) stipulations of the ratio of one policeman to every 400 Nigerians.

Nigeria’s population is estimated at about 182 million people by 2017 estimates. It implies that each Nigerian policeman or women is over stretched, safeguarding Nigerians in excess of 150 people. That’s a sickening workload. Yet, a nation that expects sanity from these security agents is silent, but expects the best. IGP Idris has in the last two years imposed reforms to curtail excesses in the system, in spite of the obvious neglect and fruits are already noticeable.

The IGP Idris Kpotum revealed recently that for Nigeria to hit the UN stipulation, the NPF mandatorily must recruit at least 155,000 officers to secure Nigeria, as expected, which translates into recruiting 31,000 cadets yearly from 2017 and sustain this recruitment figure in the next five years.

But records indicate that the NPF recruited last in 2011, until President Muhammedu Buhari came on board and ordered the recruitment of 10, 000 policemen and women in 2016. Yet, numbers of police officers are deflated every day, with deaths in the line of duty; natural causes and retirement from service.

In spite of these exigencies, Nigeria has not seen the imperative to tarry awhile and reason. The urge to reform and reposition the police to operate better only flash on the psyche of this nation once in a while, but dissolves untraceably without action.

From 2008 till date, the Parry Osayande committee on the Police and the M.D Yusuf Reform Committee, both recommended N2.8 trillion expenditure on the NPF, stretching five years. A breakdown means, N560 billion annually. But this is an institution that nets a budget far less and too shameful to advertise in public. In 2016, just a paltry N16.1 billion was approved for capital projects for the NPF. But the entire amount was not even released eventually, understandably because of Nigeria’s recession.

But the shame of a nation is that it is mild to say, these reports have been spitefully ignored these years, but may be, the discovery that these files cannot even be traced anywhere in the archives now. And this complacence, anchored on nothing, goes on?

These are no doubt, teething problems hampering the operational efficiency of the Police. A nation eager to secure itself would first tackle these challenges, and show more concern in this direction. As it is now, the only visible interest of Nigerians is in accusing the Police of wild and unsubstantiated accusations as an institution overwhelmingly peopled by corrupt elements. It is absolutely the resentful heights of national insanity and hypocrisy. Peace and security is the panacea to development in any sector of the economy and the Police are the ombudsman.

So, if Nigeria has special agency interventions like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and, the Education Trust Fund (ETF) in education alone; then the Petroleum Technology Development Trust Fund (PTDF); and Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and hordes of others, why is a civil-orientated security agency like the NPF which has the Constitutional responsibility to provide security for these other sectors to perform optimally be ignored, as evident in the refusal to pass the Nigeria Police Reform Trust Fund Bill by NASS?

The failure of Nigerians in leadership positions to discern what is good for the country is really not an asset. It is what President Buhari has set out to correct, with the appointment of IGP Kpotum.

So, it smacks of apparent error of judgment for what constitutes national responsibility and thus, the condescension to shameful personal battles, compelling the downright bullying and campaign of calumny currently mounted by a serving member of NASS and presumably a former cop, senator Isa Misau (Bauchi Central) against IGP Kpotum.

That IGP Kpotum is guilty as alleged by Misau is subject to conjecture, because the postulations in public domain allude to Misau’s status as a runaway police officer who forged retirement letter and he’s being investigated by NPF.

So, six years after Misau deserted the NPF in 2011 for a foray into partisan politics, and more than two years in NASS, this senator has just remembered that IGP Kpotum collects in bribery N10 billion monthly for posting of police officers to banks, oil companies, and private individuals. Misau estimates that the IGP nets a whooping N120 billion annually. It is more than the yearly budget of the entire NPF in Nigeria. But he wants Nigerians to believe the IGP collects such monies in bribes?

Misau is not interested or concerned with how to make his “former” constituency, the NPF, function better by resurrecting the Nigeria Police Reform Trust Fund Bill for passage? He reminds of the travails of his colleague, Dino Melaye, who felt blackmail was the ultimate until he got soaked in his hot stew.

Raheem, a security analyst, writes from Kaduna, Kaduna State.