Yemi Obafemi
Human rights activist and former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has accused the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force of corruption and inefficiency, alleging that funds are being allocated for 250,000 personnel while only about 210,000 officers are actually serving.
Sowore made the claims on Tuesday during an appearance on The Morning Brief, a Channels Television programme.
“The Police Force is rotten at the top,” he said, calling for a total overhaul and reorganisation of the institution.
He argued that Nigeria would witness a significant drop in insecurity if resources were properly invested in internal policing.
“All that cost to the military that is stolen, filtered, mismanaged—or properly spent where they claim to—if you invest that in internal policing in a year, you will get a reduction in terrorism by almost 70 per cent. You get a reduction in kidnapping by almost 80 per cent, and you get almost zero per cent in crime rate all over the country,” he stated.
Criticising the disparity in earnings between politicians and security personnel, Sowore said, “An average senator takes 30 to 50 million naira, and a police officer—who doesn’t go to sleep, who guards your borders, houses, parties, children’s schools, and to whom you report whenever anything happens—is getting paid nothing.”
He also challenged the notion that paying police officers better is unsustainable.
“Before you say, ‘Is that fiscally sustainable?’—do you count the cost of not properly equipping and paying a policeman, and judge that against what it will cost if you’re doing the same?” he asked.
“You cannot leave the police in this condition and expect them to protect you. That is how to judge investment that needs to be made—not to say, ‘Oh, if we pay them well, how are we going to sustain that?’
“You sustain insecurity and know how much it costs you. You know how much an Apache helicopter costs—instead of spending that money on policing and ensuring that you don’t have to bomb within your country,” he added.
