Ex-DIG decry rot in police colleges, training schools

A former Deputy Inspector General of Police, Isreal Ajao (rtd) has decried the rot in police colleges and training schools nationwide and has called for urgent steps to remedy the situation. 

Ajao, who was speaking at the closing-put and award ceremony of the Nigerian policing programme in Lagos, argued that if the growing security challenges in the country must be surmounted, policy makers and the management team of the police must re-strategise to promote capacity building. 

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The former senior police officer who is the chairman of the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC), also admonished policemen to in spite of the challenges they encounter on the job, to act in line with their rules of engagement, while also prioritising human rights in their dealing with Nigerians. 

Ajao who applauded the intervention of the Nigerian policing programme in enhancing police performance and that of other law -enforcement agencies in the country, said: “If we want to be serious with ourselves, then we must continue to dialogue on the way forward.

“I was a policeman for 33 years and I cannot stand here to pretend that all is well in my primary constituency. Not necessarily because the police is not there to police Nigeria, but because there are inherent problems; legal problems, historical problems, inherited problems, self-inflicted problems and the abuse of human rights here and there.

“When I was in service, I used to say to officers and men that the best public relations officer for the police is the average policeman. No matter the English your police public relations officer speaks, once a policeman at a check-point or at a stop and search misses it, forget all that the public relations officer will say; after sometime, people won’t even listen to anything.

“So, in-house, we must look at ourselves; are we doing what our masters, Nigerians have employed us to do?  I am sure that majority of police officers are toiling day and night to ensure that there is security of lives and property, but then the challenges are there. 

“It does appear that the challenges are mighty, but they are not insurmountable and that is where the Nigerian policing programme comes in. If we develop our capacity as individual police officers, individual law -enforcement officers to deliver on our mandate, there is no way at least we will not be seen by the public to be working in their interest. 

“If that capacity building is lacking, there is very little the man can do. Even if you have labourers in your farms and you don’t develop the capacity of those labourers, at the end of the year, you are not going to get anything from the farm.

“I don’t know what the situation is now, but in the years gone by, training was just for the asking. I remember we could not come in as cadet inspector of police without passing through training in England.

 “Passing through such training in England was part of the requirement to come out as a security expert not to talk of cadet assistant superintendent of police.

“But what we have now is that all the colleges are moribund, teaching aids are not there, facilities are not there. But, it is not a hopeless situation and that is why I must congratulate our brothers and sisters in the Nigerian policing programme.”