How we’ll reform police recruitment – Complaint unit boss

Members of the public will now be made to share the responsibility for the type of persons to be recruited into the Nigeria Police Force, the Officer-in-Charge of the Complaint and Response Unit (CRU), Markus Ishaku Basiran, has said. He said part of this new approach would require sureties of interested candidates to submit their […]

Members of the public will now be made to share the responsibility for the type of persons to be recruited into the Nigeria Police Force, the Officer-in-Charge of the Complaint and Response Unit (CRU), Markus Ishaku Basiran, has said.

He said part of this new approach would require sureties of interested candidates to submit their biometrics before their candidates are enlisted as officers and men of the force to make their contact easy when incidents of official misconduct and violation of human rights occur.

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He was speaking during the recent Police and CSO Situation Room on Human Rights organised by the Avocats Sans Frontières France (ASF France), also known as Lawyers Without Borders in Abuja.

“We would partner with the Department of Training and Development to ensure that before you stand as a guarantor for a potential recruit or officer to be appointed to the Police Academy, your biometrics must be captured,” he said.

He said with this the society would be obliged to recommend only persons with good moral standing or share in the blame when the police are accused of recruiting persons referred to as “dregs of the society”.

He said the CRU, which was established in November 2015, five years before the #EndSARS protest, shows that the force has been proactive in addressing public complaints against members of the police.

“A total of 2,156 complaints were reported during the 2019 period, 1,617 (75%) were resolved, 108 (5%) complaints were found to be false, and 431 (20%) complaints are still under investigation,” he said.

He said the unit hopes to become an independent office of the police to enable it to deal with real time complaints against personnel in every state of the federation.

Speaking earlier, the Head of ASFF, Angela Uwandu, said the situation room was conceived due to the need for collaboration between CSOs and government to address issues of human rights.