Prof. Oyesoji Aremu of Counselling and Criminal Justice, University of Ibadan, has advised the Nigeria Police to provide more pragmatic professional trainings to police officers and men.
According to him, such should include exposure to trainings on physical and psychological resilience that can complement traditional and modern technological training.
Aremu stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Ibadan on Sunday while speaking on the ongoing reorganisation of the Nigeria Police.
“By training and call to duty, the police are mandated to respond to stressful security situations over the course of their careers.
“This underscores the reason why both emotional and physical resilience among others are stressed in training.
“Nevertheless, it has become apparent that job traumatic stressful situations such as the one occasioned by #EndSARS could affect duty turnovers of the police as being presently witnessed in some parts of the country with the absence of police from their duty posts,” he said.
Aremu further said that every effort should be made to encourage police personnel, especially the rank and file, to return to their duty posts.
The expert said “the above, leaves us with the need to reappraise the entire internal security architecture, especially as it affects mental, emotional and physical resilience of police personnel.
“Here, the training of the personnel should be made to incorporate psycho-education skills on mental and emotional toughness on critical incidents.
“Often, during critical security situations, mental components could be depleted as observed among some of the personnel of the Nigeria Police.
“The more reason why the personnel should not only be screened for psychological and emotional toughness using psychological tests, they should also be constantly exposed to psychological training, especially on resilience.
“The training and exposures; which should not be one off should also, include situational analysis, mapping and awareness.”
