We can have the police we need

My understanding of Nigeria is that we keep doing same things but expect different results; am lost as to how that’s realizable. It’s obvious that the present setting of the Nigeria Police Force cannot effectively fight modern day crimes, due to the orientation and training they’re subjected to before being commissioned. Even if government can […]

My understanding of Nigeria is that we keep doing same things but expect different results; am lost as to how that’s realizable. It’s obvious that the present setting of the Nigeria Police Force cannot effectively fight modern day crimes, due to the orientation and training they’re subjected to before being commissioned.

Even if government can provide all the needed infrastructure, no sane foreign investor will rush to invest in Nigeria with the present security challenge facing the country.

In a bid to address this problem, several suggestions have been made including the establishment of state police (which Daily Trust editorial has aptly addressed) and community policing. I am proposing a simple, feasible and permanent solution to the problem; we’ve 774 local governments and six area councils, making a total of 780. We can employ 100/local government area (10 MSC, 20 BSC, 20 HND, 30 OND, 20 SSCE)  that is, a total of 78000 people into the Nigeria Police Force, but all trained abroad; across Europe, America & Asia on modern policing for 18months. Before their arrival back to Nigeria, solar powered modern police stations should be constructed in every local government area with the just recovered Abacha loot.

Every staff of police training schools should also be retrained. If we can reciprocate this proposal in other sectors, in a few years we’ll be surprised by the magnitude of success we would’ve achieved.

Kabir Shu’aib Tanko wrote from Abuja.