5th August, 2010
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has said that the recruitment of additional 40,000 policemen is not the panacea to the security problem presently besetting the country.
The party said it would appreciate a situation where the government test runs the enduring call for state police with about three states to show how effective it could be in solving the security situation in Nigeria.
In a release in Lagos , signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the party, Joe Igbokwe, Lagos AC insists that the problem of the police revolves around inadequate capacity, poor conditions of service, poor training and high level of internal corruption. The party says it firmly believes that the state police will succeed in dealing with these problems better than the present situation.
“We do not see more recruitment into the police force as the solution to the worsening problem of insecurity in Nigeria . If anything, recruiting more men to the police without addressing the many woes the force faces will only increase the volume of rot facing the Nigerian police.
“The Nigerian police are ill trained, poorly equipped, highly demoralized, operating under a very low capacity and unprepared for the challenges posed by the deepening security problems in Nigeria . The solution to these is not to increase the size of the force but to deregulate control so that states will come in, invest and control the police in such ways that will make for better results in dealing with the worsening security problems in the country.
“We acknowledge that one of the greatest problems facing the present Nigerian police is the way and manner it is managed. We see everything wrong in tossing policemen from one state to the other, which gives little room for consolidated understanding of the problems of a peculiar area. A situation where one police officer will be posted to an area and moved after two years will, at best, serve a cosmetic purpose in dealing with crime as he begins to learn afresh, the peculiar problems of his new area of posting. We believe that with state police, recruitment and training will center on a person’s area and consolidation that comes with staying at a given area for a sustained period of time will work to enhance policing in that given area.