21st August, 2014
Former Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Abubakar Tsav, on Thursday advised the new police management team to insulate self from politics and strive to restore professionalism in the force.
Giving the advice in Makurdi in an interview with NAN, Tsav said it was important for the management team, led by the Suleiman Abba, Inspector Geeral of Police to identify ways of redeeming the battered image of the police force.
He urged Abba to evolve disciplinary measures that would curb prejudices and insulate the force from politics aimed at promoting professionalism.
“They (management team) should device and imbibe supervisory mechanism for all police officers and men in order to reduce corruption and highhandedness among personnel.”
He also called on the IG-P to commence the process of recruitment into the force to meet the UN requirement of one police man to every 400 civilians.
“The United Nations requires that for every policeman there should be 400 civilians, we cannot meet this ratio in Nigeria with the present strength of our police.”
The retired police chief said those who were already in service had to undergo training and retraining in order to sharpen their skills for contemporary policing.
According to him, a well trained, professionally equipped and sufficiently staffed Police Force, supported by a patriotic SSS, is sufficient to provide the country the needed security.
He said it was not the responsibility of the military to handle internal security and urged the top brass of the police to take up the challenge by ensuring that soldiers returned to the barracks to do their military duties.
“It is not good for our democracy and human rights. I therefore call on the new management team of the police to work together as a unit to restore the credibility, dependability and capability of the Nigeria Police Force as a reliable and dependable law enforcement agency,” Tsav said.