Nigeria’s ‘most elegant’ police station

If every major town in Nigeria had one or two police stations like this one in the Plateau State capital, Jos, the Nigeria Police Force as an institution would attract high regards from Nigerians. It is the kind of police office building that any citizen would be proud of. Meet Nigeria Police Post, located in […]

If every major town in Nigeria had one or two police stations like this one in the Plateau State capital, Jos, the Nigeria Police Force as an institution would attract high regards from Nigerians. It is the kind of police office building that any citizen would be proud of. Meet Nigeria Police Post, located in Anguwan Zinariya, off Bauchi Road, a famous vicinity near the similarly famous Bauchi Road campus of University of Jos.
The building, a petite structure standing exquisitely on Sharna Close, certainly ranks among the most beautiful police stations in Nigeria. Only a sense of modesty and absence of research stop one from confidently tagging it the best in the country. This police post surely stands out from the pack.
 Its peculiar ambience derives hugely from its very association with the name Sharna, a growing brand in hotel business boasting Sharna Place, one of the three four-star hotels that Jos has; and Sharna Integrated Farms, a division of the Sharna Group with expansive outlets, mainly poultry farms, in Jos, Plateau State, and Keffi Road, Nasarawa State.
Now, Sharna Police Station, as the Nigeria Police Post on Sharna Close is called by members of the public around the area, radiates its opulence from Sharna Group’s dedication to carving its niche on top quality services in cosy environments.
The station was erected three years ago by the Sharna Group and is daily maintained by it. This brightly coloured architectural piece exhibits about everything a modern police station should have, which is why the station has become a rare attraction to the locals, everyone who passes by it, and the police officers attached to it.
It is similarly the reason why an abiding hearsay is passed around that suspects taken to the station beg to stay put there and police personnel transferred there hate to be transferred out.The out-of-this-country air of the place originated this hearsay, strengthens it, and became a forceful motivation for this feature.
 Though classified as an outstation under the Anguwan Rogo Police Division, the Sharna station is adjudged a masterpiece not comparable to other stations, including its mother divisional station located in the more densely populated Angwan Rogo area of the Jos North metropolitan Local Government Area.
Apart from its exterior beauty; surrounded by flowers, ornamental gravels and huge yellow-and-blue painted stones by the entrance, the interior would also hold any visitor captivated.
There is not the badly shaped or dilapidated counter to be seen in most police stations and outposts, no rickety benches and no nauseating smell oozing from toilets or cells.
Here, you will find a standby power generator set, a plasma television hanging on the entrance wall, a water dispenser by the plasma television, and a well-kept toilet facility. The building indeed dignifies the Nigeria Police.
The Sharna Group says they erected the structure from scratch as a form of social responsibility to the community, but the conspicuous beauty of the station has done much more than just that for the community. It is today a thing of pride to the people, something by which visitors to the place fondly remember the community.
Residents of the community say it is the only police station where criminals beg to be detained. One of such residents, Idris Abdullahi said, “I know someone who was brought to the police station and when they said they were going to transfer him to Anguwan Rogo Police Station, he started crying and begging them to keep him in Sharna because, according to him, even the attitude of the police officers in that station is different. He said they are more organised and they do their jobs properly.”
Suspects who nurse the desire to be held at the police post do so in vain, however, as it does not hold suspects for long.
The officer in charge of the post, ASP Ahmed Abdullahi said there are no detention cells at the post, for which reason, it could not possibly hold suspects for any long stretch of time.
Abdullahi submitted, however, that the building, having functioned for three years, had caught the attention of a lot of people who had frequently stopped by to make comments. Though he would not call the post the best in the country, he expressed, “If there is any station as beautiful as this, I haven’t seen it.”
Speaking on how the police post is maintained, Usman Adamu, an official of the Sharna Group and hotel manager of Sharna Place, located on the same street only a shouting distance from the police post, explained that the hotel cleaners usually go to tidy up the post on daily basis. Adamu said, “We paint the station in and out yearly. Our workers go there to clean the place every day because we have established and want to keep up international standards there.”
He said the Sharna Group meant to keep the place as any to be found in some of the best places around the world, explaining, “In advanced countries, you can have structures that have been built for over 200 years and they are still functioning well. We want that to be the story of that place, as in all other places that have our input.”
The Nigeria Police Force has a winding history that began in 1861 with a 30-member consular guard formed in defunct Lagos Colony. In 1879 a 1,200-member armed paramilitary Hausa Constabulary was formed. The Royal Niger Company set up the Royal Niger Company Constabulary in the north in 1888 with headquarters in Lokoja, followed in 1896 by the Lagos Police.
Earlier, a similar force, the Niger Coast Constabulary, was formed in Calabar in 1894 under what newly became Niger Coast Protectorate. The police remained separate bodies when Northern and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated in 1914, as their police forces were not merged until 1930 when what is today the unified Nigeria Police Force (NPF) came into being.
The quality of the Nigeria Police Force, as is the case with many national institutions, deteriorated as the years rolled by, evidenced in the sorry state of, among other fronts, what the rank and file wear as uniform and where they report for duty, the police stations and police posts.
The various police stations and outposts which had long begun to crumble under irregular renovations have recently come under worse fate, with armed militants and insurgents launching incessant attacks and completely bringing down many that were already on their knees.