Towards a friendlier Nigerian police

BY PAUL OKOLO

Within a few hours of opening the websites of the Nigeria Police for applicants to start applying for the 10,000 vacancies ordered to be filled by President Muhammadu Buhari, at least 8,000 people had logged in, crashing the portals.

You don’t have to be a soothsayer to know that no less than 100,000 job seekers will have applied by the end of the exercise. Many of these people are rushing to join not because they have any interest in promoting law and order but because they want to do any available job to earn a living. This has security implications. As in previous times, all kinds of characters will join in the rush like when President Olusegun Obasanjo attempted to bolster the police workforce some time ago, leading to infiltration of socially undesirable people into the institution. Political party thugs and relations of influential people found their way in. And in the end the country groaned as a result of their unprofessionalism.

Some skeptics are already badmouthing the latest exercise for that reason. There’s the pervading belief that the usual man-know-man syndrome will come to play and qualified people with a passion to serve might be edged out, shortchanging the country once more. Some are even seeing it as an attempt to mollify the ordinary people after recent revelations of clandestine recruitments of children of the high and mighty into choice establishments like the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Nigerian Maritime and Safety Authority and the Nigerian Communication Commission. The social media is awash with accusations of nepotism against the ruling class in light of the revelations of names of those who were so hired through the back door at a time when there was an embargo on recruitment by the federal government.

But irrespective of the argument for or against previous recruitments, the police clearly needs to increase its workforce. With current staff strength of less than 400,000 men and women, the increase is necessary to effectively maintain law and order and secure Nigerians and their property. According to the United Nations, the ratio of police personnel prescribed for every country is 222 police officers to 100,000 people. Clearly, this strengthens the case for hiring more hands in Nigeria given its population of around 180 million. Also, as a result of a surge in crime rate plus increasing violence caused by political activities, drug abuse, terrorism and ethnic and religious intolerance, policing our country has become a more daunting task. For these reasons President Buhari will do well to ensure that this ongoing recruitment will not be the last during his tenure. This is an exercise that should be held as the need arises.

The last police recruitment was about five years ago. Between then and now, hundreds of police officers have died while some have been dismissed or made to face other disciplinary measures that have taken them out of the system. The resultant shortage puts extra burden on an already overburdened workforce. They deserve our sympathy. New blood must constantly be injected to make it more relevant and alive to its responsibility.

Beyond recruitment, public perception of the police needs to be improved. In recent years, the police has become adept at engaging the public through a number of avenues that have helped to polish their image. Police spokespersons appear regularly on radio and television programmes and answer questions posed by members of the public. They use these forums to deal with complaints and to enlighten people on security matters. They’ve also deployed social media effectively, resulting in a better public perception.

This is not to say, however, that police performances are satisfactory. Far from it. Overzealous officers are still roaming the streets, extorting and mistreating the people they are paid to protect. Often, drunken and crazy policemen shoot and kill people for no justifiable reasons. Some people have been extra-judicially killed in detention facilities. The cases are too many to be repeated here. Response time to distress calls needs to be quicker, and people lodging complaints at police stations need to feel welcomed and not be made to pay for things we’re told are free.

The police clearly has a long way to go in cleaning up its image and start to earn the confidence of Nigerians. After experiencing the squalor, gloom and hopelessness at a regular police station, most people loath to go back for any reason. Save for the beautiful Louis Edet House, the Police headquarters in Abuja, and a few state police headquarters, no reasonable investment has been made in police residences and offices over several decades. Let’s not touch the provision of modern equipment necessary in contemporary policing. Billions of naira, no doubt, must have been budgeted for these purposes. Regarding where the money might have gone, your guess is as good as mine. Some business organizations, in fulfillment of their corporate social responsibility, have stepped in to provide some of the needed infrastructure. But their effort, laudable as they are, is like a drop in the ocean.

For the police to be at par with their global peers, the authorities need to prioritize training, equipping and motivating the officers. The minimum educational requirement for the lowest cadre under the current recruitment exercise is five credits at the school certificate examination, including English language and mathematics. Hopefully, this will put an end to the influx of people who can’t read and write. Training will in addition ensure proper handling and use of firearms, thus reducing cases of accidental discharge by officers nicknamed “kill-and-go” because of the frequent wastage of lives they’ve come to be noted for.

“The issue of force and firearms is one of the important issues that the Nigeria Police has to deal with particularly in relation to human rights abuses which occur as a result of excessive force and misuse of weapons,” one western diplomat said recently. He’s right. The human rights record of the police reflects badly on our country and it must be checked to raise our international stature. It will encourage some of our foreign partners to help us improve the police. Also, it’s a big dent on our image that the police record in investigating and resolving crimes remains poor. If not, why don’t we know who killed Bola Ige up till now?