Civil Society Organisations have called on the Police Service Commission to adopt a wholistic approach to transforming the Nigeria Police Force.
The civil society organisations that made the call include the Centre For Law Enforcement Education in Nigeria, also known as CLEEN Foundation, and the Network for Police Reform in Nigeria.
The civil society organisations were reacting to the decision by the PSC to ban persons with ‘O’ Level certificate and third class graduates from recruitment into the Force.
Innocent Chukwuma, the Executive Director of CLEEN Foundation, condemned the move not to recruit Third Class graduates as cadet inspectors.
Chukwuma said: “There have been several publications on the police reform and while I support the decision by the Police Service Commission to increase entry requirement into the Nigeria Police from SSCE to OND for recruits/Constables, I feel it is not right for them to disallow third class graduates into the Force because it might be as a result of victimization that they graduated with third class.
“Also, if the public service is rejecting third class graduates, then is it the private sector that will employ them?”
As a way of improving the Police Force, Chukwuma urged the government to increase the budgetary allocation to the police and ensure judicious use of the resources.
He said: “The police is the largest employer of labour in Nigeria but the Force get N1.1 billlion.
“The Niger Delta ministry gets N10 billion while the renovation of Vice President Sambo’s house will gulp N16 billion, far more that the allocation to the police.
“What this portends is that the officers begin to source for fund from suspects and complainants in order for them to carry out investigation and even buying materials they need.
“This breeds corruption in the Force and undermines any reform.”
In his comment, Okechukwu Nwanguma, the Programme and Advocacy Coordinator of the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, stated that the police authority should look beyond the qualification of its officers.
Nwanguma said: “The decision by the Police Service Commission to increase entry requirement into the Nigeria Police from SSCE to OND for recruits/Constables and raising minimum requirement for Cadet Inspectors above third class degree is desirable considering the low quality of personnel recruited into the force since 2000 when the police began a massive recruitment drive to make up for the shortfall arising from the fact that no recruitment of police officers took place throughout the period of military rule before Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999.
“However, it is expected that the authorities should also be able to plug the gaps that allow impostors, people with forged certificates and social misfits to find their way into the police.”
Nwanguma therefore urged the police authority to implement recommendations by Civil Society Organisations on police reform, adding: “While the decision by the PSC to increase entry requirement into the NPF sounds good on its face value, when examined critically, it once again underscores the inclination by police and political authorities to implement reforms in a piecemeal and disjointed fashion rather than holistically.
“A Civil Society Panel on Police Reform on the platform of Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, presented an alternative but complimentary report on police reform to President Goodluck Jonathan in September 2012.
“This was after months of wide consultations and public hearings across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria to ensure public input and civil society perspective in the reform process.”
Beyond recruitment, one of the areas the CSO panel examined and made far-reaching recommendations was the Content, Culture and Commitment to Training, which is critical to effective police performance and good conduct.
Nwanguma further stated that the panel found the NPF training curriculum to be severely undeveloped, with critical gaps in areas that are vital to effective policing in a modern democracy, such as crime scene management, forensics, special victims, human rights and information technology.
In particular, the panel was of the view that the mass recruitment drive of 2000 to 2004, where over 40,000 new recruits joined the NPF each year, had a devastating impact on the quality of training in the NPF.
The panel said: “This heavy intake of fresh recruits over-burdened “already strained training facilities and the educational capacity and ethics of these
recruits were extremely doubtful.
The Panel made the following recommendations that the training curriculum of the police should be reviewed to include new areas of training and speciality, Instead of a single training manual that covers the entire NPF curriculum.
“Also, the recruitment exercise should be transparent, rigorous and should include psychological tests and the profiling of recruits to determine their state of mind and moral uprightness.”
Furthermore, the panel found the state of training institutions and facilities available for police training in varying states of dilapidation and decay with the gruelling and dehumanising conditions to which they are exposed.
It stated: “It is hardly surprising that the police officers who ‘graduate’ from these training institutions have not just failed to learn the skills they need for effective policing, they have also become brutalised and ready to treat the public whom they are meant to protect with unnecessary harshness and cruelty. As a way out, Police Colleges and training institutions in Nigeria should be refurbished and modernised to ensure that basic infrastructure such as lecture halls, student accommodation and teacher residences, cafeterias, running water, constant electricity, clinics, recreational and other facilities are provided. In addition, up to date equipment, tools, libraries, laboratories and physical training facilities must be provided. All training institutions should be audited every five years to ensure the facilities do not get run down and that they are maintained on a continuous basis.
“Adequate training kits for the police must be provided and laboratories, gymnasiums, libraries, computer laboratories, shooting galleries and weaponry rooms must be well equipped to ensure that the police are familiar with these tools and skilled in handling them.”
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