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First of all, I will thank the almighty God for helping me to reach the
highest level of my career and also thank the Presidency and the entire
Nigerians for giving me this opportunity to serve as the 16th Inspector-
General of Police of the most populous black nation of the world since the
appointment of the first indigenous Inspector-General of Police in 1964 in
person of late Mr.Louis Orok Edet. I am aware of the task ahead of me to
be the I-G of a nation which characterized by diversities and
contradictions arising from population heterogeneity, urbanization,
industrialization and conflicting ideologies on religion, socio-political and
economic sectors. A country that is seriously and urgently in demand of
the minimum elements of democratic policing which include
accountability, efficiency, equality and justice.
The situation in Nigeria now is so serious that the conventional
ways of doing things can no longer solve our problems judging the fact of
the numerous police Inspectors General we have had since independence
(fifty-one year ago) and the image, trust and reputation of the police which
have been soiled by the “bad eggs”. I will like to re-write the history of
Nigeria Police force by making self-sacrifice, take personal risks, not
minding stepping on “bad toes”(as done by Nuhu Ribadu) and will be
ready to lay down my life for the nation in order to create a new Nigerian
Police force with patriotism, integrity, confidence and trust. Uniformed
police officers are a visible part of every community. I will create a police
force with attitudinal powers to relate with the people thereby making
them to play important roles in sustenance of order, legality, development
and democracy and not the present 20 naira notes beggars in uniform.
Meanwhile, going back to history, in 1829, Sir Robert Peel
established the London Metropolitan Police Force with its headquarters at
Scotland Yard on great mission of policing and securing compliance with
existing laws and conformity with precepts of social order necessary in all
societies for the preservation of order, safety and social relations. The
establishment, organisation, control, command and management of the
Nigeria Police Force are governed by a colonial legislation (Police Act.
CAP 359 of the Laws of the federation of Nigeria 1990) and the 1999
constitution of Nigeria, section 4 of the Police Act provides that “The
police shall be employed for the prevention and detention of crime, the
apprehension of offenders, the preservation of law and order, the
protection of life and property and the due enforcement of all laws and
regulations with which they are charged and shall perform such military
duties within and without Nigeria as may be required….”
The vision of the Nigeria police is “making the country safer and
secured for the attainment of national aspiration” and the mission is “to
deliver qualitative and efficient security and law enforcement services to
the citizens of Nigeria.” Police work involves a variety of tasks and
responsibilities which involve a lot of self -discipline, patriotism, dedication
and hard-work to prevent crime, manage crises and practice their skills.
As rightly said by Chinua Achebe in from (The Trouble With Nigeria )-
“Leaders are in the language of psychologists role models. People look
up to them and copy their actions, behaviours and even mannerisms.
Therefore, if a leader lacks discipline, the effect is apt to spread
automatically down to the followers” Also one of the world most
outstanding actors Clint Eastwood once said:“it takes tremendous
discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s
lives”.
Frankly speaking, we have been witnessing a contrary motive of the
establishing police force in the last two decades. It is not an exaggeration
that there is a widespread abuse and corruption in the force to the extent
of acquired the reputation of the most corrupt public institution in the
country. The inefficiency of the Police force regarding maintenance of law
and order became obvious with the widespread terrorism, kidnappings,
institutionalised bribery, extra-judicial killings, unwarranted searches,
recurrent waves of brutalities, election malpractices, torture, harassment
and loss of personal liberties, frequent armed robbery involving the use of
sophisticated weapons, and high casualty just recorded from the previous
communal and ethno-religious conflicts that spread across the country.
Most recently, the Human Rights Watch researcher, Eric
Guttschuss in his recent research work on Nigeria police titled “Everyone
is in the game “ levelled a shocking allegations that :”innocent people are
regularly detained and a fee demanded for their release…the rank-and-file
police officers are often forced to pay their senior officers a share of the
money extort from the public…people who are assigned to lucrative posts
such as roadblocks or working traffic are given monetary targets that they
must meet and give back to their superiors…officers who did not meet
those monetary targets, they would be punished with a transfer to a less
lucrative post” .All these allegations will be looked into critically.
My first agenda is to face squarely the issue of bribe and
corruption among police officers. I will make a follow-up of what the
Minister of Police Affairs, Alhaji Adamu Wasiri said in Makurdi recently
on the federal government consideration to increase the salaries and
allowances of officers and men of the Nigerian Police and also to embark
on massive facelift and rehabilitation of all police barracks and offices
across the country. After this is in progress, I will make a live broadcast
(in both radio and television) to announce abolishing of all road blocks and
check points throughout the country and that no police officer must
receive or extort from any motorist henceforth. All police vehicles will now
be used for detaining, patrolling and transporting instead of mounting an
illegal road-block.
Fines and any legal transaction of money involving public must be
paid to the police accredited or designated banks with appropriate
receipts. Any police office taking bribe either at police station or on the
road will be summarily dismissed with his or her name and pictures
appearing on national dailies, police websites and that person will never
be eligible to be voted for in any federal or state government elections. I
will seek the cooperation of all members of public and implore them to
make necessary voice and photograph recording of any policeman in the
act and send it with necessary details to the new Police Force Watch
Box to be placed in all federal post offices throughout the country.
Moreover, as crime prevention is a major concern in Nigeria, my
second agenda is equipping the police force with modern technologies in
sophisticated arms to match with any armed-robbery bandit in the world. I
will make sure that only the specialists unit of the police are allowed to
carry firearms. Provision will be made for non-lethal weaponry, particular
for riot controls which include batons, rubber bullets, electroshock
weapons, more handcuffs to restrain suspects, whistles, flash-lights,
police notebooks and citations otherwise known as ticket-books. I will
provide more new patrol vehicles to all stations and introduce the use of
special motorcycles which will now be used to control potential public
and escort duties-two police riders at a time. I will double our efforts in the
use of specially trained dogs for detecting illegal drugs or substances and
also in tracking down of criminals fleeing on foot. All these patrol vehicles
will be marked with appropriate police logos, and well equipped with
sirens and light-bars to aid in making others aware of police presence.
Meanwhile, as modern police forces throughout the world make
extensive use of radio communication equipment, this will be carried both
in the person and installed on all police patrol vehicles .Effective crime
and operational information management will be institutionalised with
good storage and retrieval facilities. I will make it a point of duty or
delegate my public relations officer to make press briefing every
fortnightly and frequent publication of criminal statistics will be given to
public every day. No Police officer should be on duty without walkie-talkie
or handie talkie (two-way radio transceiver). Communications will be
highly organised with wireless equipment while network of telephones
extends to all police stations in the country. This will help officers to
coordinate their work, share information and get help quickly. I will
change the current Police Emergency numbers (08032003913,
08061581938, 07057337653) to only three digit number like 055 or 777 to
make people to remember and dial within a second.
This number will be free of charge with twenty-four hours service to
be manned by diligent operators. In order to achieve our goal of reducing
crime rates with communication and information dissemination, I will liase
with the presidency to make national identity card free and compulsory
for all living souls in Nigeria and abroad (through Nigerian embassies
oversea), computerization of vehicles and cycles plate numbers, and
speed-up to complete the exercises of the accreditation of mobile
telephones subscribers in Nigeria (Globacom, Etisalat, Multilinks,
Starcomms, Zain, etc) to have authentic personal data of all their
customers who bought telephone lines from them all on or before 31st of
December this year. To curb the waves of increasing crime in this
country, everybody must be involved; everybody must have identity,
including all foreigners to be issued with resident and working permit
respectively. This method is now in use in developed and developing
countries of the world. Apart from making the job of policing very easy for
identification and investigation, it will serve the objectives which
population census is meant for. The country needs to know the numbers
of people catering for. People’s identification will help in use for criminal
background checks in persons of interest to be completed in just matter
of seconds, even, on all police patrol vehicles.
Bureaucratically, in my strong effort to improve police manpower
both in terms of quality and quantity, I will make all effort to build a
disciplined, trusted and professional police force. This fourth agenda is to
emphasis on in-service training and professional recruitment to make the
police more accessible to the concern of the society under the law of the
land. I will establish a non-partisan police board to manage the affairs of
recruitments and promotions on strict merit, recognition and reward for
outstanding performances and promotions. As a lover of sport, the will
force will be given open recruitment for those outstanding Nigerian
sportsmen and women. We will give them support to the greater heights
as it was done in the olden good days. I will make sure that Police force
soccer team features in the professional league division one and some of
our outstanding youth soccer academy players will take the place of
those “forty-something years” average-age Eagles sent to South Africa
world –cup. Nigeria is the most blessed country with talents in Africa.
Lest I forget, after the short courses, I will start the national rotating of
officers from state to state to protect Nigerian citizens and see to the end
of this inhuman terrorism. This new salary increment will attract qualified
officers for forensic science laboratories which will be staffed with more
experts and professionals in biology, pathology, physics, zoology,
microscopy and photography. Concerted efforts will be made to
rehabilitate and equip (both in human and materials) all Police colleges in
Orji River, Maiduguri, Kaduna, and Ikeja respectively. The same thing will
be done to the Police Mobile Force Training School in Guzuo, south-
western of Abuja, the Police Detective College at Enugu, the Police Dogs
Service Training Centre and the Mounted Training Centre.
My fifth agenda will be launching of an Independent Police
Complaint Commission as we have in the United Kingdom to act as
checks and balances (Ombudsman) to the activities of the Nigeria Police
Force. This is a separate body or organisation outside the police force
that will be dedicated to investigating crimes committed by the police
themselves. This body would be responsible for investigating
circumstances involving police and civilians that resulted in serious injury,
allegations of sexual assaults and death. This commission will receive
vital information and tips from the general public on crime without fear,
intimidation and anonymity if needed. This Independent Police
Complaints Commission will only have access to the keys for all the
Police Force Watch Boxes placed at all the government post-offices
throughout the country. All people found with irregularities on information
given will be prosecuted by the law court with dispatch.
Lastly, I will now increase the Police detectives to make up
roughly 15-25 percentages of the police service personnel. I will assign
the police detectives department to despatch out “plainclothes” officers to
all states of federation to start now to investigate on crimes, terrorism
hide-out and election malpractices. Terrorists, kidnappers, and armed
robbers does not live in isolation. They live with us and we must “fish”
them out and be prosecuted. Personally, I do not like the present black
police uniform at all, as there is not time for changing now because of the
present situation of the country, I will make sure this uniform is changed
later and change the name Nigeria Police Force to Nigerian Police
Service. I will make sure that before I leave as the Inspector-General of
Police, all living souls would have restored their confidence and trust in
the Nigeria Police force again. All individuals will be treated fairly, with
their rights respected making them sufficient to feel safe in their
community and regard police as patriotic agent of government and a
friend indeed.
God bless Republic of Nigeria.
Written by,
Adewale T Akande, an Author and Road Safety Traffic Consultant
Barcelona, Spain.
If I were to be the new Inspector-General of
the Nigerian Police Force
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Adewale T Akande
Sunday, January 29, 2012