The Ndigbo Unity Forum (NUF), an NGO, has urged President Bola Tinubu to recruit 100,000 police personnel yearly within the next five years to secure citizens under criminal siege for years.
The President of NUF, Mr Augustine Chukwudum, made the call while speaking to newsmen in Enugu on Sunday on measures to stem the rising insecurity in the country.
Chukwudum noted that the massive recruitment of police personnel had become imperative to protect the professional integrity of Nigerian soldiers, whose primary duty is not internal security duty.
He noted that since 1985 till date, all administrations from Federal, states and local governments had neglected the police to the extent that “money budgeted for police is not released to them to carry out their duty as required.”
According to him, sometimes even when the money is released, it will be late thereby depriving them of funds and less than 50 per cent budgeted fund released at the end of each year.
He said, “Security budget is not supposed to be delayed at all. There is no justification for it being delayed.
“That is why anytime you go to a police station to report any matter they will ask you to mobilise them; before they will perform their constitutional duty.”
The NUF boss also condemned calls for state police by state governors.
“State police will lead to unwarranted arrests, killings and dictatorship on the part of state governors who will not spear any opposition or dissenting voice against their policies and programmes.
“NUF will continue to oppose them (governors) because the security votes they collect every month are not accounted for, which ranges from N500 million to N1 billion naira (one billion naira) per state each month.
“Why can’t they use this security vote they collect to equip police command, formation, unit and personnel in their various states to eliminate criminals and terrorists disturbing the country?
“Instead the state governors turn back to give excuses that they are not the one controlling the police, which is not acceptable to the suffering Nigerians because you cannot eat your cake and have it,” he said.
The NUF boss also called for training and retraining of police personnel in modern policing techniques as well as intelligence gathering for them to remain proactive rather than being reactive.
“We are also calling Federal, state and local governments to equip police with modern equipment like those used in developed countries so that Nigerian Police can perform exceptionally well.
“Federal Government and the national assembly should abolish security votes collected by governors monthly and any kobo spent on security by any state governor must be well accounted for,” he added.
