We wonder the kind of reforms several IGPs said they did if the pensions, salaries and welfare generally of our policemen are still as appalling as they are
Visibly angry and justifiably so, a retired Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Mr Fatai Owoseni, has severely denounced the paucity of funding and lack of concern for the welfare of policemen and officers. Speaking in an interview on the News Central TV’s Breakfast Central Programme, Mr Owoseni revealed that police divisions in the country are forced to operate on running costs of as little as N30,000 monthly.
Surely, here is someone who cannot be accused of not knowing what he is saying. Citing his experience in Lagos, he asserted that “You have a Divisional Police Office like in Ikeja Police Division that has an area of responsibility so large, and what you use to fund that police division is N30,000, to do what?”.
Continuing, Mr Owoseni noted that “Where you have a policeman posted from Jigawa to Ikorodu in Lagos and there is no accommodation for him or anything; that sleeps inside vehicles in the police station, yet the people that rule us, that have the power, will come out shamelessly to say that policemen stink. How will that policeman not stink when he sleeps inside an exhibit vehicle and wakes every morning? He looks for pure water (satchet water) because he has no family in Ikorodu, and he is transferred from Jigawa. So where do we go from there?”
Owoseni ‘s revelations only reinforce what has long been known as regards the chronic underfunding of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the humiliating indignities to which the organisation’s personnel are exposed. It is obviously because of the huge deficit in funding that most police divisions across the country either do not have requisite crucial operational vehicles or are even unable to fuel such vehicles where they are availableThus, police officers are several times known to have requested that members of the public who call on them for rescue in times of emergencies send down vehicles to convey their men to the scene of danger, a request most people in panic can obviously not meet. Again, many policemen are said to set up check-points and collect illegal ‘tolls’ from members of the public in order to buy fuel or sundry spare parts for their vehicles.
In the same vein, a good number of policemen are reported to buy their own uniforms and boots even when they are on salaries and allowances that they consider insufficient, demeaning, dehumanising and unjust, especially against the considerable demands of the profession and the grave risks they face daily in the challenge of fighting crime and bringing criminals to justice.
In further confirmation of Owoseni’s pathetic portraiture of the plight of officers and men of the NPF, a special report in The Punch newspaper, featured several retired and serving officers bitterly decrying their conditions of service and particularly their pensions and other retirement benefits after no less than three and a half decades of service to the nation in the NPF.
One of such police retirees who bowed out of the NPF after 35 years was seen in a viral video lamenting that he was contacted nearly nine months after retirement and asked to report to collect his gratuity of N2 million and pension arrears of N1 million adding up to N3 million. The understandably bitter police retiree was heard in the video bemoaning his fate: “I’m not collecting that money; let my service be in vain. I don’t have money, and N2 million will not solve or make me a rich man. I cannot serve this country for 35 years and be paid N2 million. Please the IG should intervene”.
Another issue that emanated with regard to police welfare and retirement benefit schemes in The Punch story is the gross disparity in salaries and welfare among service men and officers in different security agencies.
One of the officers interviewed, Festus Ogbebo, said he held a two- star Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) rank and would soon be due for promotion to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). However, he lamented that while he currently earns N30, 000, “my counterpart in the army, who retired as a two- star ASP, is earning over N150,000”.
It certainly cannot be that the responsibility of maintaining internal security, which is the purview of the police, is less important than defending the territorial integrity of the country, which is the prime duty of the military. Both are critical and mutually reinforcing responsibilities for which both operatives of the military and the police deserve to be treated fairly, and with due respect for their welfare and well-being.
Again, a number of the police retirees complained that they were previously under the Pension Fund Administrators where they enjoyed a more just and equitable treatment before their forced transition to the present Nigeria Police Pension Administrator under a contributory pension scheme that they consider unfair and dysfunctional.
Police authorities should seriously consider reverting to a pension scheme structure that most police retirees consider fair and just or concretely address and eliminate identified lapses under the current scheme.
Surprisingly, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Kayode Egbetokun, has reportedly ordered an investigation directing the NPF Pensions Limited to identify any possible lapses and ensure appropriate actions are taken to address issues raised. Given the number of years he served in the NPF and in different spheres within the organisation, we expect the IGP to be quite conversant with the pertinent issues.
But it is better late than never. We expect Egbetokun to deal not only with grievances revolving around pensions and retired benefits, but also the entire gamut from adequate welfare, adequate equipment and operational funding as well as proper motivation.
Most of these issues boil down once again to the deficiencies of the kind of overcentralised police structure which we have today, especially against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s evident lack of the requisite funds to effectively fund the NPF effectively to achieve optimum performance. Creation of state police will bring more boots on ground across the states, thus enabling the NPF to restrict itself to dealing with federal and inter-state crimes.
While the various states fund policing structures and operations within their jurisdictions, the NPF will be able to more optimally utilise federal funding available to it to perform its functions with greater efficacy.
As it were, the NPF today is almost wholly dependent on the states for funding, arms, kits, operational vehicles, including Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), communication equipment and staff welfare, among others. Yet, its unitary structure continues to render it ineffectual and almost always impotent in the face of crime.
Surely, we cannot continue to do the same thing in the face of our grave security challenges and expect to reap a different outcome from the harvest of needless bloodshed and horrendous destruction that has been our lot for many years now.
With the current pensions, welfare, equipment and motivation impediments plaguing the NPF, the officers and men cannot but be psychologically disoriented, mentally besieged, frustrated and predisposed, often unprovoked, to aggression towards members of the public they are supposed to serve.
These factors are also responsible for the pervasive corruption associated with the police, their callous disposition on duty and their utter disregard for human lives. Although we are most often quick to blame policemen and officers for these shortcomings, the truth is that a society invariably gets the kind of police force that it deserves.
