Tuesday, 22 May 2012
The Conditions Of Nigeria's Police Force
Photo Credit, Sahara Reporters
Photo Credit, Sahara Reporters
By Sahara Reporters, New York
Nigerian authorities are insincere about Policing within Nigeria.
When Chief Superintendent of Police Musa Garba said the challenges facing the Mpape Police Station located in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, are “enormous”, he wasn’t overstating it. For the past three years, this Police divisional headquarters has remained an eye sore.
On a tour of the station during the annual Police Stations Visitors Week (PSVW) held from October 31 to November 6 in 21 countries across 5 continents which aims at improving police-public relations, Mr. Garba showed members of the public four discarded shipping containers turned operational base. It is from here 93 police personnel manage one patrol vehicle and are expected to provide security to one of the most densely populated satellite towns in the country’s Federal Capital Territory.
“As you can see there is no block building. The whole police station is made up of just four containers,” said the Mpape Divisional Police Officer (DPO) who occupies one container. “This place initially served as an outpost but ever since it was upgraded about three years ago nothing has changed. We currently have only one non serviceable vehicle which is presently grounded. This is what we have to make do with.”
The station has just one obsolete computer with no internet access found in one container serving as a stuffy administrative office, while the third container houses the station’s grossly understaffed traffic unit. It is however in the fourth container which has no light fittings and adequate ventilation coming from a portion cut out to serve as a window that male detainees are cramped up. Female suspects and street urchins are kept in a rundown make-shift wooden structure constructed into a police counter and charge room.
“This does not qualify as a standard police station. It is just disheartening seeing the cell and how they are packed like sardine,” said Umari Ayim, a lawyer, gender activist and first time visitor to the station. “No person, suspect or even criminal, should be kept in this kind of place. The conditions are terrible for humans to live in. Even for the police officers it is unacceptable. This is really bad.”
One suspect who said he had being locked up for five days, contrary to 24 hours as the law stipulates, narrated the sanitary conditions detainees face in the container.
“Make the police no lie to you say we dey go outside use toilet. Na for inside here we dey shit [defecate], piss [urinate] and sleep. Na so we dey suffer,” the young man said as he pointed to the extreme end of the container from where emanated a putrid smell.
His testimony was contrary to the police claim that detainees used a dilapidated toilet in an open space; which actually serves as the toilet being used by lower ranking police personnel. Senior police officers make do with another toilet, though enclosed, but not better off. The Mpape Police station has no rushing water or drainages and it relies on the generosity of Julius Berger Construction Company, which donated the containers years ago, for electricity. Most police officers with several years on the job described the station as “the worst” place they have ever worked.
The situation in Mpape is the reality of too many police stations across Nigeria. Another true picture of policing in Nigeria was made manifest when, on another day’s visit to Maitama Police Divisional headquarters located in one of Abuja’s most high-brow areas, it was revealed that as many as 278 of the station’s total strength of 397 personnel are security guards to top government officials and politicians; leaving 119 police officers to insufficiently provide security to the larger community.
“We are handicapped as we have insufficient number of personnel. Almost all the VIPs reside here and 60 to 70 percent of the policemen deployed to their homes on guard duties are from here,” The station’s Divisional Police Officer, Hayatu Usman, a Chief Superintendent of Police, told foreign nationals and Nigerian visitors.
Coupled with the station having only four patrol vehicles in deplorable condition, CSP Usman said the situation has resulted to the few remaining personnel, though now having to work longer hours, not meeting up to the security requirements in the area, which include foot and vehicular patrols especially at night, traffic control operations, surveillance and intelligence gathering. The circumstances are worse as police officers, unable to afford accommodation within the city, travel far distances to come to work.
The visitors couldn’t help but feel that Nigeria Police stations are specially designed to fail going by the present framework where the Police hierarchy don’t take into account the specific immediate needs of police stations in their diverse localities. A major problem with the current system is heads of police units don’t make any input into the formulation of the budget of the police force. They only contend with the subventions they receive from their superiors, if and when they come.
“The budgeting process is top to bottom,” says Kemi Okenyodo of CLEEN Foundation, a partner of the Altus Global Alliance, organisers of the police stations visits. “As a result how do you gage what they need at the bottom? The police budget is supposed to take into cognisance the entire cost of running the organisation including each police station in the country. But what you find is people even senior police officers don’t have access to the police budget, which leads to ask how do you then hold the police accountable?”
This question of accountability further lends to who bears the cost for fuelling the operational vehicles, generators, down to the stationary employed in the offices of every police station in the country. Many times, at the risk of compromising professional ethics, Police officers depend on the charity of individuals and organisations to carry out their duties. It is common place to see police personnel using their personal items for official work. In Mpape, CSP Garba used his own money to construct the wooden interior in the container he occupies. In Maitama, where there is not even a first aid box, CSP Usman disclosed that only this year has he received a meagre sum of money to cover the stationary needs of his station. The welfare of suspects in Police detention is another case in point.
“The feeding of suspects is supposed to be done by contractors but they don’t come because they say they are not being paid,” CSP Usman said. “Only once since January I think N10,000 was given to cover feeding of detainees. For now it is their relations and some voluntary organisations who feed them.”
The hypocrisy of how the Nigeria Police system is run is visibly seen via the demoralising expressions on police men and women. When Napoleon Enayaba, a Nigerian historian, visiting the Mpape Police station asked one policeman at the Police counter/charge room why, as against the rule, there was no information displayed on the detainees board which should give details of the 12 suspects who were in police custody, the officer said off-hand, “we don’t have chalk”. Another police officer replied “we didn’t bother to keep account” when it was observed that the crime diary where cases reported to the station are supposed to be recorded had not been regularly updated. A glance through the register also showed several suspects had remained in detention for days on end for minor bail able offences.
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its GEJ fault....
Submitted by chief Lamidi (not verified) on November 9, 2011 - 09:03.
GEJ has embezzle all the police money. The govt of jonathan is corrupt and a total disgrace to the world body. we should all blame jonathan for the fail state of the nigerian police force.
THE POLICE ARE 2 HOLD THEMSELVES RESPONSIBLE
Submitted by A (not verified) on November 9, 2011 - 08:41.
The Nigerian police should hold themselves responsible for their predicament.They are the tools politicians use to rig elections.There is no election rigging that the NPF did not aid and abet in this country.They are getting what they bargained for.What you plant is what you reap.Weap not for the NPF.
Kudos to Sahara Reporters!
Submitted by OC (not verified) on November 9, 2011 - 06:16.
I wish to see more articles of this nature, which seeks to expose, highlight or beam a torch or searchlight on the ugliness of the Nigerian institutions, with the aim of bringing about improvement and change.
A good expose. It's a shame that despite having numerous IGPs and Police Service Commission (PSC) and even a Ministry of Police, with past Ministers, the situation just highlighted about the Police, their stations and, presumably, their barracks, is grim and not fit for purpose. What has become of all the Police budgets allocated over the years? Who, therefore, polices the Police? Probe or audit the Police!
@Rebel
Submitted by Wähala (not verified) on November 9, 2011 - 01:53.
You: "...yours is not a tribe any normal person would envy"
And yours?
You must have poured yourself a greedy shot of ogogoro and gulped it down at once when you wrote that. What's your tribe? Urchins like you who snatch laptops at Ojuelegba Roundabout should be verboten to contribute here. What race is enviable in Nigeria today? Who's faring better for the state of Nigerian Police today? Instead of constructive contribution, you come here to display massive ignorance to the international community. Crawl back to your hideout, sucker!
Otsai, Who is to blame for
Submitted by Otile (not verified) on November 9, 2011 - 00:01.
Otsai,
Who is to blame for the mess. As you people say, call a spade a spade. Tafa Balogun stole the money meant to build a strong police for, but his tribesman Obasanjo released him by placing him on a 6 months sick leave.
Why do people beat about the bush when it comes to the wrongdoing of Hausas or Yorubas? That corruption dealt a blow to the police force. Is anybody asking Balogun to refund the money he stole?
It's a shame
Submitted by Otsai (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 23:11.
It's a shame that at the 21st century,Nigeria police station still remained one of the greatest eye sore and worst hell in living memory. If Abuja police stations are that bad, i can't help to imagine how other stations in less priviledge state could be. the police force in every developed countries are the pride image of the govt.exept only nigeria where officers are reduced to mere guards to high profile political thiefs at the detriment of the masses. this is how bad corruption bites and this revelation will be nothing when carried further into other arms of the govt. No wonder, what we have as dividends of democracy in nigeria is gross insecurity accompanied with wanton destruction of lives and properties.
An illiterate
Submitted by Sonkafus (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 22:22.
You are nothing but a ranting gong that crave without direction.everything Goodluck Jonathan what have you done for your country? Learn to close that your old stinking mouth
This is just plain terrible.
Submitted by Darwin (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 22:15.
This is just plain terrible.
Tundemash, It is always
Submitted by Otile (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 20:24.
Tundemash,
It is always entertaining to see you and your fellow Yoruba mother fuckers pounce on me. You people know I am harmless, but why not take on the gallant Boko Haram people if you consider yourselves tigers? It is interesting to see your crowd now answering different false names. The more cowardly ones among you assume Anonymous, some ogbeni naija, Rebel etc. Of course the most ludicrous one is the idiot who calls himself Netanyahu. He now claims to be 'Ibo' to get accolades from his dunce partner, Tundemash. Tundemash is the only half decent one who has part of his Yoruba name at least, but as a foolish man he rubbished his good name by adding mash to it. I wish he knew what mash means before he committed the blunder. Well, that is life in Oduduwa land.
Transformation
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 19:10.
Thats "transformation" GEJ style! Obama will soon praise him again! He is ferforming!
POLICE CONDITIONS
Submitted by michael alade (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 18:27.
Where is Mark and the rest of them? and this is a country that pays its overpampered legislators one of the highest salaries if not the highest in the world. Shameless lots.
@Netanyahu Re: please stay with
Submitted by tundemash (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 18:11.
@Netanyahu
If only we can have more level headed Igbo guys like you contribute on this forum it would be better and I sincerely believe Otile does not reperesent the position of literate Igbos.. Otile's response to every article is coloured with ethnic sentiment .. he's under ethnic siege all the time.
Corruption is Nigeria's number one problem and it knows no ethnicity, it is spread across all the tribes. That is the issue we should address. Gone are the days when you think if only a southerner is President, things wont be that bad. OBJ had been there, corruption went into billions ! The current pretender in Aso Rock sold the Speaker's residence to Bankole! We are not sure Aso Rock is not sold yet.
The irony is that same Nigeria police force who this article is about aided and abetted poll-rigging forgetting that they ,also would suffer in the mismanagement that comes from putting corrupt people in power !
naija
Submitted by lolu (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 17:54.
Same toree, EVERYTHING UPSIDEDOWN.
Police Sorry State in Nigeria
Submitted by lekan (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 17:51.
I travelled round Taraba State recently and I saw first hand the poor state of police stations or post that even pigs would refuse to stay talkless of work. This is majorly the reason why they collect bribes. Our politicians are to blame for all of these in the police.
Corruption has ruined this country. Our V.I.P as described by FELA have failed us totally, all they do in abuja is to steal our money. No wonder EFCC cannot work. How did these big men arrive at there wealth, check out the IRS at work abroad, u must account for each ppound you earn!! Its a shame!!!
The NPF deserve every
Submitted by ogbeni naija (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 17:46.
The NPF deserve every illtreatment they get from the government,i only pity those that allow their family to go into the NPF.The Nigeria Police Force is the NUMBER 1 ENEMY OF THE MASSES whom the are surposed to protect,they are been cursed 24/7,so how will it be well with them when they keep killing the innocent people that pay for their kits & arms.Only God knows how much Haffiz Riggin is making from Boko Haram every month,and he will pretend as if he is serving the masses.The worst treatment will come to NPF except they change from their evil.Is the bribes they collect from poor Nigerians not enough to run their stations?We are not interested in what is happening to them,any policeman that is not satisfied with the force should resign,then start ridding okada or become a bus conductor on the streeet and what common Nigerians surffers in the hands of the corrupt magots called The Nigeria policemen.
FUNDING and EXPENDITURE IN THE POLICE
Submitted by Muhammad (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 17:43.
Of course what else do you expect when year-in year-out, the Police budget is "invisible"!? Most of the operational vehicles used by the Police were "donated" by the Federal. State and Local governments, so what on earth happened to the Police Budget or is it that the NASS deliberately refuses or fails to appropriate funds for the Police?
Until and unless there ais transparency in how the police is funded and run, this degradation will continue unabated, that is the NIGERIA POLICE for you.
Otile, please stay with
Submitted by Netanyahu (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 17:37.
Otile, please stay with issues being discussed. Leave this ethnic sprinkling of every issue. I am an Ibo, if you are one. To those of you that capitalize on this guys 'jokes' to label all Ibos criminal, I am very sure in your luccid moments would tell yourself the honest truth that you are worse than 'otile'. No educated, enlightened, sane person would hate so much as some of you Ibo haters tend to exhibit here. We can intelligently discuss problems bedeviling Nigeria without resorting to this base exposition. We are all playing the ostrich if we pretend we do not know the rot in all spheres of our existence as a nation.
@otile who told you onovo is
Submitted by ogbeni naija (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 17:36.
@otile who told you onovo is a saint.i can see you are full of frustration and foolishness.you should stop making yourself a nuisance in this forum.if you dont have any reasonable thing to say,it is better you remained asleep in your hurt and stop embarrassing yourself.
2 plaque in nigeria
Submitted by texbee (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 15:57.
We have 2 plaque confronting nigeria, the first is corruption, and the second which is an affiliate of the first is lack of power. We all know our problems and we know the solution to the problems but nobody wants to provide the solution, because the consequence may be bitter.
This piece has just dampened
Submitted by Iwu, Gideon (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 15:54.
This piece has just dampened my spirit. We don't expect the NPF to work themselves out serving us at their peril without adequate equipment. Little wonder why they drove out corps members looking for protection during the post-election crisis, they kill for a token green polyethylene note, connive with armed robbers, give out guns in exchange for robbery spoils and even rape innocent citizens they are meant to protect among many other atrocities so numerous to count. I hope our leaders act rightly this time and move for change.
GOD BLESS NIGERIA.
GOD BLESS NIGERIANS.
GOD BLESS OUR LEADERS.
Who is probing who?
Submitted by Darlington Bari (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 15:42.
EFCC is a SURROGATE of the police force.
Who is to investigate who? Is the Chairperson of EFCC not a product or part of that same decay?
THE CORRIDORS OF OUR POWER AND INSTITUTIONS ARE IN ROTATIONS. THE SAME PEOPLE, IN DIFFERENT POST BUT, SOMETIME WITH THEIR SIBLINGS, OFFSPRING AND KINS MEN.
TELL ME BROTHERS, WHAT HAS REALLY CHANGED SINCE INDEPENDENCE? THE NAMES ARE OR ALWAYS STILL THE SAME EXCEPT, A BREATH OF FRESH AIR( GEJ ), THAT IS NOW TURNING INTO A CALAMITY AND DISASTER FOR US!
sad commentary
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 15:38.
That the NPF is about the only organization that has three specialized Agencies, yet this rot, is doisheartening to say the least. What are the Ministry of Police Affairs, Police Service Commission and the management of the Police doing?
otile go cure your rebies
Submitted by sultanofsokoto (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 15:11.
@ otile my dear, yoruba man snatch your wife or better still yoruba woman no allow you polish "congo"? Why do you keep foaming from both corners of your godforsaken mouth like a dog invested with rebies? Yorubas are here to stay, so start learning to live with it or get yourself a hand grenade and shove it where it hurt most.
We did it before and we are going to do it again! Ask me what, DEFEAT YOU!
Dorfdepp!
personalising security
Submitted by Dan Akpofure (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 14:56.
I wonder where we are going with the present nonsense political dispensation where security OF A STATE is being personalised. Typical example is the governor of Delt State who recruited,trained and armed a group called the RED BERRET BRIGADE which he and his thugs headed by one AIYERE uses to guard Uduaghan and terrorise people of Delta while the Police force is starved of funds. This CARICATURE democratic system has made Nigeria become a BIG FOOL at 51. Where are we going fellow Nigerians?THE NONCHALANT,COMPLESANT AND SELFISH attitude of those in power has turned us into REFUGEES in our own land.Where do we go from here? The whole government apparatus has been basterdised in favour political scheming.
Police
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 14:48.
Rebel, I was reading your posting avidly to know what you said about the police conditions; Zilch! Let's keep to the point.
You people ain't seeing anything yet
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 14:08.
You people ain't seeing anything yet. The police are major collaborators in election rigging in Nigeria. So if you aid an incompetent, insensitive rigime into power, that's what you get. Stop lamenting.
This is very disguting, I
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 14:02.
This is very disguting, I dont have anything else to say. The two pictures say more than enough.
What kind of President rules a country with such medival police station. What does he have to say, that its the minister's fault?!
Shame to all Nigerians who cry but do nothing. Occupy wall street is made of people with no vissible solution but with hope and strength to stand for what they believe in.
What are Nigerians standing for, with conditions such as these and Boko Haram on the other hand?
Shame on you all.
The condition of Nigeia's police
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 13:40.
The saying goes that the bad smell of the shrew-mouse comes from its bones and that the trickstar has at least one trick he plays on himself! The water in the 'gourd' (from were you cut a calabash)went through its mouth. What these sayings point to is that the police are their own worst enemies. Does anyone need to say more? When you have no respect for the dignity of others, how can you respect yourself. Where does the opulence of serving and retired senior police officers come from? Certainly not from a civil servant's pay.
@john omos Re: The minister of petroleum
Submitted by tundemash (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 13:28.
@John omos
U claim "The minister of petroleum Diezani Allison-Madueke bought a villa in Vienna -Austria 20 million euros it was in Austrian newspaper today sorry sorry ooo for Nigeria."
IT is not enough to do "sorry sorry ooo for Nigeria", you either scan the page of the newspaper and send it to SR to publish and you get the weblink and send to us all here. LETS BE MORE PROACTIVE!!
@Otile: You are just an ethnic bigot !!!
Submitted by tundemash (not verified) on November 8, 2011 - 13:22.
@Otile
You are just an ethnic bigot !!! Can't you make an intellectual submissions with facts without bringing ethnicity into it ? Jonathan sacked Onovo because he's Igbo but you didn't mention he appointed Ngozi Iweala because she's Igbo ! How about the Present Chief of Army Staff who is Igbo appointed by same Jonathan ? You write arrant nonsense most of the time.
Now is the time you realised "As long as the slave-master alliance between the Ijaws and Hausas remain in effect, Jonathan will serve under the direction of his Hausa masters." where was your brain before April election ? Did Jonathan not score over 98% in most Eastern states? Did all Eastern states except Imo not vote in PDP govs again same party as Jonathan ? YOU ARE CONFUSED ! THAT SAME CONFUSION MADE U VOTE IN DUMBO JO, SO LIVE WITH IT AND STOP BLAMING YOUR FAILURE IN LIFE ON ETHNICITY WHICH YOU PROUDLY PROMOTE ANYWAY.
