In a recent interview with Vanguard , the IGP noted that the way forward is by
applying available technology and training of manpower.
Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase
With security challenges and criminality facing the nation, what should the citizenry expect under your watch?
I have come in at a very defining moment in our national life and I know that the expectations are high. I have been in the system for quite some time too, and I have been in very strategic positions in the force. The Nigeria Police houses the best you can have in the system, but I think that what we have not been able to do over the years is to build on the capacity of our officers. So, one of the areas I am very interested in is trying to de-segregate our needs assessment and look at the areas where we should lay emphasis on, and give my officers training that would make them perform; be it administration operations, investigation or intelligence. Whichever of those areas we want to look at, we should be able to develop the capacity of the officers to deliver on their mandate.
What do you have to say on the belief that compared to Nigeria’s population, the number of policemen is small and equipment not enough?
You can never have sufficient policemen to police 170 million Nigerians. People always brag about the United Nations ratio. Even that one you can only situate it against societies that already have a very good technical platform like the one i talked about in the USA and Britain. We don’t have the technical platform, so no matter what people try to do now, what you do is feasibility policing; your ability to do prediction policing where you position your men strategically so that you give that psychological reassurance that the society is being policed.
Road blocks are a recurring decimal as far as the Nigeria Police is concerned. How do you intend to deal with this?
I have dismantled them. I have set up a taskforce with 12 vehicles for the six geo-political zones that are co-terminus with the ones that have been supervised by the various DIGS and all I have asked them to do is a very simple task, ‘I pay your bills, I gave you the vehicle, I fuel it and you go there wherever you see those road blocks, remove them from the highway and just note where they are and hold the commissioner of police responsible’ because I have already directed I will hold the Area Commander responsible and I will hold the Divisional Police Officer responsible.
On why there is corruption in the Nigerian Police?
A policeman is corrupt because he is not sure of the future. If he thinks that his future is not guaranteed, the tendency to be corrupt is high and also don’t forget that corruption is pathological. Once you are corrupt, if I put you where they distribute stationery, you will still steal it.
Read the full interview here.
Recently the IGP asked Nigerians to stop bribing his subordinates, stating that the problem of corrupt policemen shouldn’t be blamed on police alone.
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