The
Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Ibrahim Idris, has said that the Nigeria
Police Force requires additional 155,000 personnel to adequately provide
security for the country.
Idris,
who said this at a two-day National Security Summit in Abuja on Thursday, said
to achieve this, the force needs to recruit 31,000 cadets annually for five
years. The theme of the summit is: Forging Partnership for Effective Strategies
to Curb the Menace of Kidnapping, Recurring Farmers-Herders Clashes and
Criminality in Nigeria”.
“To
attain the UN ratio requirement of one police officer to 400 citizens of a
country, the Nigeria Police Force needs to recruit 155,000 to police Nigerian
population of approximately 182 million,“ he said. Idris said the police had
not conducted recruitment into its rank and file cadre since 2011 until 2016
when the recruitment of 10,000 applicants was approved by the Federal
Government. He said this development had left a huge gap in the manpower need
of the force due to retirements, deaths and resignations.
The
police boss said the proposal had been forwarded to the Federal Government for
consideration. He added that inadequate funding, shortfall in power and
training and retraining of personnel had been some of the challenges
confronting the force. “Over the years, the Nigeria Police Force saddled with
the responsibility of policing the country, has been grappling with fundamental
challenges which tend to impede its performance,” he said.
The
IGP said the issue of funding of police had been critical to all past police panels,
adding that it had yet to be critically addressed. He said the Nigeria Police
Force Reform Trust Fund bill before the National Assembly since 2008 had yet to
be passed.
Idris called on members of the National
Assembly to expeditiously pass the bill to address the challenge of funding for
the police. “We solicit the support and understanding of the National Assembly
to give an accelerated hearing to this bill to adequately position the police
for better funding and performance,” he said. He said the bill would further
provide a legal framework that would outline the counterpart funding
arrangement between the three tiers of government.
Idris noted that when passed, the police would
be funded through a first line charge on the federation account quarterly. He
said that in spite of paucity of fund, the force in collaboration with other
security agencies had been able to stabilse the polity
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