Public institutions are established largely with functional imperative of protecting public interests. Their adjudged credibility, successes and failures are in most instances predicated upon the levels and the extent of public confidences they enjoy.
The capability and efficient delivery of statutory responsibilities by the institutions serve as conditions precedent in the attainments of the institutional objectives.
And the rapidity with which a public institution responds to the callings of members of public is determined by amongst others, adequate funding, training and equipment. While other factors are relevant, the most important is adequate funding of such institutions. This is because adequate funding remains the determining factor of success of any organization, all things being equal.
The Nigeria Police has been one of the public institutions whose records of adequate funding had historically been much to be desired. Of course, great noise had been made concerning the extent and rapidity with which the police force responds to the yawning of the public. But a dispassionate observer of the working of the police in the last decade will agree that the force has almost been fractured by lack of adequate funding.
Thus, years of failure to live up to expectation in terms of effective policing of Nigeria at different occasions had embarrassingly lowered the esteem of members of the force in the eyes of members of the public. In the same vein, this prolonged inefficiency largely occasioned by low levels of funding for the police has aided an image of the Nigeria Police as an enemy institution instead of an institution with clear mandate to protect the lives and property of the people with quick and appropriate response to their demands.
The historical failure of the Nigeria Police to meet its statutory requirement of protecting the lives and property of the people, and the huge public condemnation of its perceived lack of professionalism will be taken seriously if the precipitating factors of these failures are objectively analyzed. And if such analysis can be anything to go by realistically, the blames will hardly go to the NPF alone.
Almost on daily basis, we malign the force for what it has done wrongly.
We even occasionally attempt comparison between the Nigeria Police and its counterparts in advanced countries in terms of performances. One disturbing part of these comparisons lies in the refusal of the commentators to extend the comparisons to the levels of funding. It is germane to note that while in advanced countries, funding of the police system rests on the shoulders of the state and corporate organizations, it is absolutely left for the state to handle here in Nigeria.
There is no reason why the funding of the NPF shouldn’t be the responsibility of all tiers of government and corporate organizations. Even the well to do members of the society shouldn’t be left out of police funding since the safety of lives and property is a desired commodity by all. So, if the truth must be told and logic applied, the funding of NPF must be the duty of all the stakeholders in our system. Unless this is institutionalised, the police’s poor performances will remain a permanent national phenomenon.
This is why the position of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, that “funding remains the most fundamental problems confronting Nigerian Police organization” is a truism.
In one of his multiple moves to reposition the Nigeria Police Force, the IGP briefed National Assembly correspondents when he unequivocally called on members of National Assembly to do something urgently to remedy the crisis of police funding in the country. According to Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, the solutions to the problem of the force lies in the passage of Police Trust Fund bill which has been lying unattended to for a long time in the National Assembly.
According to the IGP, the Police Trust Fund, which will provide for first line charge financing, would make adequate funding available for the police without hindrances. The IGP stated that the present arrangement where the regular funding of the police comes only from the Federal Government will hardly help in giving us the kind of police the nation deserves.
It is against this backdrop that the IGP appealed to the Federal legislators to pass the bill without further delays since it has been in the cooler for several years. Justifying the necessity for such legislative imperative for police funding, the police boss opined that “although, the Nigeria police as an organization is faced with many challenges, I can say the most serious is that of inadequate funding which passing of this bill will significantly take care of.”
Telling what sound like a sorry story of the Nigeria police, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris further argued that the Force is over stressed in all ramifications because, according to him, the Nigeria Police Force has only 300,000 officers and men manning 182 million people.
This, he said, is far below other African countries like Egypt. Egypt has one million police men manning only 80 million populations. The IGP reminded the journalists that the Nigeria police-population ratio is far below UN recommendation of 1-400 police-population ratios.
With this revelation, one can rationally argue that the 300, 000 Nigerian police men and women are indisputably miracle workers for being able to man over 180 million population of Nigerians. This is why we must all put our heads together to appeal to the National Assembly to make the Police Trust Fund a reality.
It is also important to advise the police authorities to know that, to whom much is given much is expected. The record of the police in the past in terms of prudent management of resources has left much to be desired. Thus, while we crave the indulgence of members of the National Assembly to pass the bill, it is right to admonish the Police to be sure that what is meant for the improvement of the force does not end up in improving the private economy of the leadership. However, taking into account the credibility of the present IGP, one is full of optimism the Trust Fund will lead to transformation of NPF in a manner unprecedented.
Saliu resides in Lagos
