Nigeria Needs 500,000 Policemen for 2015 Polls-IGP Suleiman Abba

The acting inspector-general of police, IGP Suleiman Abba, has said that the federal government has approved the recruitment of 10,000 police personnel across the nation. IGP Abba, who made this disclosure yesterday during his visit to the Leadership Group headquarters, however, said he wished the figure could be increased to 500,000, stressing that the present figure was inadequate. “I chaired the 2015 election planning committee and I made a recommendation therein, that we should have a certain number of policemen recruited ahead of the election. And we came in and found out that government had approved 10,000   more to be recruited.

“As I speak to you, the funds are getting close into our own hand and the recruitment will begin. So, we are making effort to reach the required number. We wish we could get up to 500,000 but, then, remember that we are not doing it alone. There are other services and the other services are helping us,” he said.

The police boss, who vowed to come down hard on violent criminals, disclosed that arrangements were underway to revive the Police E-department, an intelligence arm of the force which was carved out of the police during a reorganisation.

“You would have witnessed what happened to the intelligence department of the police. We used to have a very, very effective intelligence department of the police. They call it the E-department. And you all know what happened. In a reorganisation, it was carved out of the police. Since then the police force has been struggling to establish that department,” he said.

The IGP urged Nigerians to cultivate the attitude of having the numbers of the control rooms of the police command in their locality, or the numbers of operatives in police stations in their neighbourhood.

Reacting to the reports of inadequate funding of the police, Abba pointed out that though funding for the police was grossly inadequate, it was incorrect to say only about 25 per cent of the budgeted funds gets to the police.