On the perennial underfunding of the police

The recent report that the management of the Nigeria Police Force has stopped recruitment into the force as a result of paucity of funds is quite saddening. The report mentioned that the last recruitment into the force was done in 2011. What this means is that policemen lost to terrorism, illnesses, accidents and retirements are yet to be replaced. With a total strength of 370,000 personnel, it is hard to see how the police can provide adequate security for all Nigerians.

But that is not all. The former Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, once revealed that over 100,000 policemen serve as escorts to private individuals. That leaves only about 270,000 to provide security for over 170 million Nigerians in a most critical period when terrorism and insurgencies are ravaging the country and the crime wave is increasing by the day.

It is a known fact that the police force – the principal agent for maintaining law and order – has been poorly funded and neglected in Nigeria. An investigation conducted last year by Premium Times showed that the Nigerian police, especially the rank and file, are the least paid among security agencies in Nigeria. It also did a comparison with other police forces in the West African sub-region and discovered the rank and file police personnel in Nigeria receive some of the poorest pay.

But the funding problem of the police runs deeper. The report revealed that since September 2014, the police management had been borrowing money from banks to pay salaries as the budgetary allocation to the police is not enough to pay even salaries. The report also cited credible police sources as saying police detectives have no means of investigating most criminal complaints because there is no money for logistics. In most cases, the complainants have to provide such logistics if the police are to act on the complaints.

Across the country, policemen live in terrible conditions and scrounge for daily subsistence. The mere sight of a police barracks in Nigeria fills one with revulsion and pity for the people who live in such buildings. In most of these barracks, the roofs have given way and the concretes and some parts of the building are collapsing daily, endangering the lives of the occupants. In some states, only the Commissioner of Police and some very few officers have decent accommodation. Others live in the barracks that look like pens for housing domestic animals. Some sleep in offices or halls of police stations or in abandoned vehicles.

We recall that the neglect of the police began during the second phase of military rule in 1984. Having accused the civilian regime of Shehu Shagari of prioritising the police over the military, the military regimes, perhaps out of professional rivalry and jealousy, began to systematically starve the police force of funding and weaken its crime detection, investigation and controlling capacities. So bad was the situation that the force had to close down its main investigative section (B Department) and its dog section, neglected its fingerprints, handwriting and other scientific departments, ignored trainings abroad, recruited no new experts and lost grip of its traditional functions of detection of crime and apprehension of offenders. As the crime-fighting and prevention capabilities of the police declined, the same military governments set up several rival agencies (Road Safety Commission, Civil Defence Corps, etc) to take over most police functions with the military itself becoming increasingly visible in internal security matters.

With the return to democratic rule in 1999, Nigerians naturally expected successive civilian governments to address the problem of the police, but sadly, the problems have persisted. It appears the government is not fully aware of the central role the police should play in maintaining law and order in a democratic society. This has left the country with a pitiful police force that is incapable of performing its main functions, but one which is so corrupt and at the same time adept at terrorising law-abiding citizens. Little wonder it has lost the respect and cooperation of the public and has next-to-no role to play in the current fight against Boko Haram.

We, therefore, urge the government to, as a matter of urgency, begin to address the myriad of problems of the Nigerian police – its funding, training, equipment and welfare challenges – and position it to effectively perform its onerous task of policing Nigeria.