- 200,000 of 377,000 operatives involved in executive protection
With rising incidence of crime across the country, partly due to Nigeria being underpoliced, facts have emerged that a higher percentage of personnel enlisted in the Nigeria Police Force are not engaged in the protection of lives and property of average Nigerians.
Findings by The Point show that of the total 377, 000 workforce of Nigeria Police, about 200,000 policemen are engaged in what is described as executive protection of Nigerians who are or were once in leadership positions.
With about 55,000 men of the Force said to be engaged in administrative duties across several of fices and Police formations spread round the country, the findings revealed that only about 122,000 Policemen were left to tend to the remaining population of over 169 million Nigerians. United Nations recommendation specifies that every country should have a ratio of one policeman to 400 citizens.
But with the revelations, Nigeria, with an estimated population of about 170million people, is currently operating at a ratio of one policeman to about 450,000 citizens.
A presidential order, which operates in the country, allows public servants at certain senior levels and category, the luxury of personal police security and protection. And the protection services provided, more often than not, covers the individual, his family and his properties.
Apart from the senior serving and former public servants and servicemen, first-class traditional rulers, managing directors of banks, all branches of financial institutions across the country, politicians and their family members, among others, are also part of the group of persons or properties that enjoy the privilege of having police officers attached to them almost on a permanent basis.
An analysis shows that a retinue of policemen is usually attached to provide ‘security’ to the presidency; the heads of the two arms of the National Assembly, governors and deputy governors across the 36 states, federal ministers, state commissioners and even local government chairmen of the 774 councils spread across the country.
About two policemen are assigned to each of the 109 legislators in the Senate; same are repeated for their 360 counterparts in the House of Representatives. This is different from about five officers meeting the security and other needs of the principal officers of the National Assembly. That is not all. In the case of some of the legislators, who are former governors or exservice men, their security guards are doubled.
Aside from these lawmakers, over 50,000 security forces are on standby ready to catch any fly that comes near other principals in the executive arm of the government. Some of these officers are the President, Vice President, Ministers, Chief Executive Officers of agencies and other parastatals in the country. Other beneficiaries of this largesse are 36 sitting and innumerable ex-governors and sole administrators of the states across the country.For instance, when our correspondent visited one of the houses of a former governor of one of the South West states in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos (close to Ikeja City Mall), he sighted two armoured tanks with five mobile policemen on standby on a street off the politician’s house. Six others were seen guarding his house.
Also, the correspondent spotted about three policemen each guarding the houses of another former governor of Ogun State and siblings of current governor of the state in Ibara, Abeokuta. Among the current governors that enjoy teeming escorts of policemen are Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State. Findings revealed that aside from over 10 men that guard the Government house in Ado-Ekiti, four others are positioned at his Spotless Hotel, Ado-Ekiti and six others in his house at his hometown in Afao-Ekiti.
‘CALL IGP TO ORDER’
Although, the incumbent Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, had, shortly after his appointment, promised to review the trend, still, after about two months in the saddle, nothing appreciative had been done as he merely towed the line of his predecessors.
“Heads of Commands and formations are supposed to carry out the IGP’s order, but since indiscipline and corruption have become twin monsters in the police, nobody could be held accountable. Go to Igando axis of Lagos, Police Mobile Force personnel are still guiding homes and private properties,” an activist who is an executive director at Paths to Nigerian Freedom-a Non-Governmental Organisation, Mr. Dandy Eze, said.
He added that, using the highly trained mobile policemen as body guards by nit-wits in flowing Babaringa, simply shows the type of a country we have.
The activist told The Point that Nigerian streets were now more dangerous than they used to be because of scarcity of patrol policemen. While lauding the approval by the Presidency to train 10,000 cadet officers, the activist said time had come for a state police.
“State police is working in America, Australia, and Canada. It will work here because time has finally come for it. And there is no pretence over it. Let those states that have the wherewithal embark on aggressive recruitment of our jobless University graduates and see a transforming society in terms of security,” he said.
An American-based Nigerian activist, Mr. Samuel Enudi, frowned at what he described as the “rising culture of non-policing of our streets by the police”. He observed that the officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority and other related agencies across states had taken over traffic management in their respective states, noting that it was expected that there should be more policemen to guard the streets.“I can only see traffic management agencies across the country and that should bring relief to the NPF but nothing has changed. In other climes, patrol vehicles would be everywhere, strategically placed because nobody can commit a crime under the watchful eye of an officer. Where are our policemen?” he inquired.
An independent source close to the Police Service Commissionsaid, “In the past, officers were not made to progress on equal basis, most especially when tribalism and nepotism were the order of the day; when the twin brother of corruption, otherwise known as quota system, was the guiding compass. These, among several other antidemocratic forces, have continually weighed down the slender arm of progress within the Nigeria police force.”
He added that the IG appeared to have lately recognised the ugly development as he and the Police Management Team decided to reverse some of the traditions seen as very anti-democratic in the police force.
“Lack of career pattern, which obviously allows an officer to look the other way round in his inordinate ambition to make dirty money by seeking to serve under the appendage of politicians and other crooks parading themselves as bigtime businessmen and women,” Enudi said.
A week long investigation by The Point revealed further that, in Lagos State alone, over 1,000 police officers are guiding private properties, which include hotels and brothels belonging to political and military big wigs in the country.
“Our streets are at the mercy of private security personnel as volunteers take over jobs that are supposed to be done by the police, whose salaries are paid by taxpayers. Now, nobody is safe any longer because the police have vacated their traditional beats for private homes and individuals,” Barrister Giwa Amu said.
The human rights activist added that rising insecurity in the country was as a result of “our politicians’ recklessness.”
“They [politicians] have cornered everything. The irony of it all is that, no country can have economic stability where there is a break down of law and order. If Nigeria is serious about policing with integrity, the IG should call his men to order. We need the policemen more on the streets than in the homes and business empires of politicians. We need the policemen to patrol our streets on a 24-hours basis; and the best way to manage crime is to nib it in the bud. A good policeman would not react to a crime when it had been committed. You repress and suppress it before its occurrence,” he opined.
TREND UNPROFESSIONAL – EX-SERVICE MEN
A retired Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav, told The Point that it was unprofessional for any police officer to take undue advantage of his position to deploy policemen to undeserving and unauthorised persons for fees.
He said, “It is criminal to engage in such an enterprise and I think the IGP would do something drastic about it, because he is a thoroughbred officer, who does not condone any form of indiscipline.
“Looking at the strength of the force today, it is quite obvious that authorities are actually aware of the fact that the figure is in no way a match with what the United Nations deemed as best acceptable way of policing any developing country considering the pockets of security challenges daily confronting them.”
According to him, it is in line with this general knowledge about policing in Nigeria that the successive governments have always made available, annual budgets that could take care of the basic needs of the police.
“It is very unfortunate that the economic downturn that hit the world about six years ago compounded issues; but then, security challenges have today forced many countries to continue making reviews capable of meeting up with those challenges,” he said.
IT’S NO LONGER BUSINESS AS USUAL- POLICE
However, the Force Public Relations Officer, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Don Awunah, told The Point that the Presidency had listed the names of people who were entitled to use private guards, which he said fell under what is known as Special Protection Unit.
Awunah, who failed to disclose the actual number of police personnel entitled public office holders, listed the President, Vice President, state governors and their deputies and the Chief Justice of Nigeria among a few others as the beneficiaries of the gesture.
A reliable source close to the Force in Abuja disclosed that a major reform capable of constricting the nefarious activities of some police officers was in the offing as the PMT, under the leadership of the IG, had concluded plans to bring back the past glory of the police.
