Policing does not come cheap. Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris said this much when he asked for at least N200billion yearly for investigation alone. The police got only N121million for that purpose in last year’s budget. Besides Idris, Court of Appeal President Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa and other stakeholders are worried about the poor funding of the police. But, some have argued that despite the billions of naira spent on policing over the years, nothing much has been achieved because of corruption. What other factors hamper police work? Or is funding the only problem? Is the Bill for an Act to establish the Police Reform Trust Fund the way out? Senior Correspondent PRECIOUS IGBONWELUNDU writes.
As the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) in a murder case, Inspector Musa Adamu, wanted to travel from Lagos to Kano for the case. He approached his boss, who explained to him that the formation had exhausted the N4,900 monthly allowance for travels, adding that even if the the money was available, it could not take Adamu to and from Kano.
The IPO was left with two options – turn to the bereaved family for help to embark on the journey, or forget about his lead and charge the matter to court.
While still on it, the station received distress calls about an armed robbery and an accident in different locations.
Having exhausted the quarterly N45,000 allocation for fuelling and other logistics, the policemen told the callers that “there’s no fuel.”
The above scenarios highlight the daily plight of the police in executing their duties. Despite the onerous job, the government has over the years, starved the police of funds, no thanks to dwindling federal revenue.
For over a decade, authorities clamoured for the Police Reform Trust Fund Act, to address the problem.
Many Nigerians did not appreciate the need for the Fund in the past, just as they felt that the police’ were yet to justify the resources availed them. To them, the “no fuel” excuse given by the police when called upon to do their job is “inexcusable.”
This prompted a civil rights group to stage a protest to demand a probe on how the “billions” allocated for petrol were spent.
To the group’s dismay, they were shown documentary evidence that a police formation gets not more than N45,000 every three months for all expenses.
The pitiful condition was further highlighted by Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris at the public hearing on the Bill for an Act to establish the Nigeria Police Reform Trust Fund.
Similarly, Court of Appeal President, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, along with other stakeholders, at a workshop in Abuja, called for better funding of the police.
Although the issue of funding has been on the front burner for over a decade, Nigerians started paying closer attention after the police chief’s startling revelations on funds required for specific purposes and what was released.
What the bill seeks to address
When passed into law, the Trust Fund would address issues of Information Communication Technology (ICT), patrol/operational vehicles, crafts and other facilities, provision of full complement of arms/ammunition, riot control equipment, protective gears, armoury and firing/shooting range
Others include: forensic technology/scientific aids for investigation; operational/administrative logistics; community policing project/public relations; clothing/accoutrements; construction, rehabilitation and modernisation of infrastructure/facilities for capacity building (training), as well as rehabilitation/construction of stations, barracks and personnel welfare.
The statistics
Despite recommendations by the M.D. Yusuf Committee of 2008 that the police would need an estimated N2.8 trillion for capital development (N560 billion/year) within five years for effective reform, N16.1 billion was appropriated to the service last year but a paltry N10 billion was released, Idris disclosed.
The police demanded N1.164 trillion between 2012 and last year for capital budget, out of which N64.999 billion was appropriated but only N40.477 billion was released and cash-backed. For overhead allocations, N328.34 billion was requested, N39.43 billion was appropriated and only N32.22 billion was released within the period under review.
For investigations alone, the police need at least N200billion annually but got N121 million last year. With a fleet of 14,306 vehicles, including 3,115 motorcycles, the Force would need N19.9 billion to minimally fuel them yearly, but they got only N809 million last year.
‘‘What is most worrisome is that though the budgetary allocations on paper are insufficient to meet the financial needs of the Force, the actual releases are far below what is budgeted.
‘‘The basic requirement to provide adequate and appropriate items of kits for police personnel annually is N14,583,671,264 as against the N1,752,500,000 earmarked in the 2017 Appropriation. This limitation negatively affects the turn-out of Police personnel.
‘‘Of date, there are over 7,000 police formations and units across the federation. There is constant movement of personnel of the Force to either quell civil disturbance, contain violent crime, investigation purposes or even routine movement of personnel on transfers/posting within or outside these locations.
‘‘These movements entail the payment of appropriate Duty Tour Allowances (DTA), payment of allowance in lieu of hotel accommodation, etc. Unfortunately, allocation to the Force in terms of DTA is paltry. It is estimated that the Force needs over N200 billion for local travels and transport.
‘‘In the 2017 Appropriation, a budget of N411million is made for local travels and transport nationwide. This translates to an average of N58, 714 annually to each of the 7,000 locations or just N4, 893 monthly per formation. The implication of this is that Police officers on official assignments are not paid their DTAs, thereby making the Police to fall back on the state governments to offset some of these allowances.
‘‘The Police Trust Fund is crucial to the Force. If the Bill is passed into Law it will largely address the funding problems to improve on Police welfare and efficiency in the discharge of our constitutional functions,’’ said Idris.
He said it has been said severally that the regular source of funding for the Police, through budgetary allocation has failed to address the financial needs of the Police to provide adequate security for the nation.’
“The total average maintenance of the fleet was evaluated at N7.04 billion per year, but N486 million was released in 2016,” Idris added.
Investigations by The Nation revealed that policemen would continue to collect kickbacks in order to sustain patrols, buy stationery and other office equipment because the quarterly N45,000 per station cannot sustain them for two weeks.
According to some senior officers, information money that used to be provided Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) and other heads of commands to pay informants is no longer given. They disclosed that no police station could boast of having 10 canisters of teargas, adding that the Force’s anti-riot team is dysfunctional.
They said each police station should have nothing less than five patrol vehicles, towing vehicle, a lorry to move exhibits and a bus to move personnel.
The police officers decried the current practice where a DPO has to source for funds for the treatment of any wounded personnel.
“Take time to visit police training schools. You will see how recruits are lumped up in hostels as though they are goods. They are fed with N150 per day, that is N50 per meal. You need to see the conditions of the food. How does the government expect anyone to come out from such condition and be reasonable? That’s why when they pass out, they see nothing wrong with crowding the cells with human beings because those were the conditions they were subjected to. It is pathetic,” a senior officer said.
However, some Nigerians have argued that despite billions of naira spent on police over the years, not much has been achieved due to corruption.
They believe that funding, though a challenge, is not the major problem of the police. To them, the police need to rid themselves of corruption, indiscipline as well as justify the resources availed them before clamouring for more.
Others are of the view that poor funding is responsible for all other challenges the police face, calling on the National Assembly to speedily pass the Bill.
Lawyers’ views
Lawyers have supported the passage of the Bill but want people with impeccable integrity to be in charge.
They also want an accountability channel to be in place to avoid embezzlement and mismanagement.
Those who aired their views on the issue are Emeka Ngige (SAN), George Oguntade (SAN), Sylva Ogwemoh (SAN), Ahmed Raji (SAN), Festus Keyamo (SAN) and constitutional lawyer Ike Ofuokwu.
Ngige supported the enactment of the bill, adding that issues of professionalism, orientation and training be reviewed.
He said: “The average Nigeria policeman is poorly trained and thus lacks the professionalism expected of a law enforcement agent. Their orientation as at now is not on how to help a victim that is in need of help but how to exploit such a victim.
“In other words, their orientation is a perverted one that centres on bribery and corruption. That is why I support the Police Reform Trust Fund Bill because money realised through the Trust Fund will be used to give the recruits and the serving officers proper training and retraining.
“This will thereby enhance their level of professionalism in the discharge of their duties. The other aspect of the problem I find in the police is the mode of recruitment.
“People with dubious character are still being enlisted in the force and yet the leadership appears to be helpless. I give an example. During the last police recruitment, one of the applicants used my name and photograph as one of his referees.
“I have never met the applicant from Adam. Not only that, he used the name and photograph of a prominent traditional ruler from Anambra State as his referee. He got our photographs from the internet and then forged the reference letters with the photos. It was just by sheer coincidence that one of the examiners at the police examination of the applicants stumbled into the application form of this criminal and contacted me by phone inquiring whether I recommended anybody in writing for enlistment into the Police Force. I responded in the negative and the criminal was thereafter asked by the examiner to wait after the exam and see the officials. Before you could say Melaye, the criminal escaped from the examination hall!
‘’Now, if the examiner who knows me very well had not contacted me, the criminal, if he passed the exam, would have been enlisted into the force and be part of the policemen protecting our lives and properties. Can you imagine that!
“There may be hundreds if not thousands of such criminals that may have been recruited into the Force using dubious identities and documents. This poses a major problem because adequate screening had not been done by the Police for these applicants. I will, therefore, urge that screening of those already recruited into the Force should be a continuous exercise to fish out the bad eggs and throw them away.”
On what the police need to be more effective, Ngige said merit should be upheld and quota system abolished.
He said: “The last recruitment exercise carried out by the Police was on the basis of quota; according to local government origin of the applicants across Nigeria. Merit was relegated to the background. This does not augur well for an efficient Police Force that we dream of. Merit should be given pre-eminence so that we can attract the best brains into the force.
“Following this is the issue of remuneration of the personnel. I suggest that the emoluments of members of Nigerian Police should be the same with those in the Armed Forces like the Army, Navy and Air force. The policemen should be well paid and under no circumstances should they be owed salaries and allowances.
“I fully support the proposal to make Police funding a first line charge on our consolidated revenue. If members of National Assembly, INEC, the NJC and others enjoy first line charge status under the amended Constitution why not the Police?”
Oguntade said it was indubitable that funding inadequacy was a fundamental problem affecting effective policing in Nigeria, noting that the funds budgeted and released at the moment were being injudiciously spent as a result of corruption.
He said: “The Tafa Balogun saga readily comes to mind. So, while I will support the establishment of a Police Reform Trust Fund, I will also add a caveat that the Funds be managed by an independent body who will submit periodic reports to the supervising ministry and the National Assembly. This way, transparency and effective utilisation of the Fund is assured.
“Apart from the twin problems identified, another is that of gross indiscipline in the Police Force arising from inadequate training.
“It may be difficult to divorce this from funding issues, but it remains a huge problem nevertheless and which ought to be tackled as a matter of priority.
“Any Police Force will only be as effective as we make it. A society where Police Officers are paid non living wages, owed arrears, have no proper or adequate pension/insurance cover cannot augur well and this is evidently reflected in the situation we find ourselves today.”
Ogwemoh said adequate funding was important for effective and efficient police investigation. He supported the passage of the Bill but noted that corruption should be addressed first.
He said: “Despite the huge funds that have been channeled towards building the Police Force over the years, there is little to show for it in terms of crime prevention, detection and investigation.
“It is key that the issue of corruption is confronted and steps are taken to clean up the police institution otherwise the passage of the Police Reform Trust Bill by the National Assembly will be meaningless.
“Apart from the issue of funding, other factors hampering effective crime detection, prevention and investigation are lack of training and an effective capacity building mechanism in the Police Force. “There is an urgent need to overhaul the present system of training of police officers in Nigeria. A new programme of training ought to be drawn up which must focus on the physical and psychological wellbeing of the average police officer.
“To achieve an efficient police system in Nigeria, corruption in the Police Force must be brought to a minimal level while the mechanism for training the police officers is improved upon’’.
Keyamo said the idea of police trust fund has always been beautiful but the management of such fund has been problematic.
He said: “I have not looked at the nitty gritty of the Bill but there must be inbuilt provisions for accountability. The major problem that has hampered police investigation till now is poor funding, which leads to lack of motivation on the part of investigators and also corruption.
“It also affects the ability of victims of crime to be able to pursue the investigations because in most cases, the police would require the victims of crimes to go and raise money in order to enhance investigation. So, if victims don’t have money in Nigeria, they hardly get justice.”
To Raji, there was need to restructure the police along readjusted federating units for effectiveness.
He said: “The Nigeria Police is one of the oldest institutions in Nigeria from the Native Police Authority days. There is hardly any state today where the state government is not contributing to the funding of Nigeria Police.
“It will, thus, seem that while funding is an issue, a bigger issue may have to do with the structure.
“To achieve a better efficiency, I will humbly suggest a restructure along a readjusted federating units.
“It may be counter productive to allow the present states to maintain or establish state police when they cannot pay salaries of workers.
“We need to go back to functional federating units of six or eight regions with greater devolution of powers but in a united Nigeria. ý
“But, let me salute our men and officers of the Nigeria Police for doing their best in the difficult situation they operate. A restructure will go a long way to assist in their job. It is not a vote of no confidence in them.”
Ofuokwu admitted the police were underfunded, calling for a statement of emergency in the force.
He said that serial corruption on the part of those saddled with the responsibility of managing police funds was part of the problems.
He said: “Permit me to say that for a more effective, better, and result-oriented police that will conform with modern policing and best global practice, a state of emergency urgently needs to be declared in the Nigeria Police Force.
“A fundamental review of what we have today needs to be put in place for a more effective and better policing, amongst which must be better funding through a bill for an Act to establish a Police Reform Trust Fund to be managed by tested and credible individuals of unblemished and impeccable integrity.
“I must posit that there are other more serious issues confronting the police, among which is human capacity and the psyche of the average Nigeria Police officer.
“They must be educated, trained and retrained through continuing education that policing is a community service, not an avenue for primitive acquisition and self aggrandisement. Finally we need to discard the idea of quota system and insist on the best at the point of entry.”
