Obasanjo accuses Nigeria Police of unseriousness

The former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday blasted the Nigeria Police Force saying the police institution is not a serious organization.
He stormed out of the training event organised by the Zone 2 Police Command. Onikan, Lagos for Police officers under the command where Obasanjo was the Special guest of honour.
The former leader became furious when he spent almost two hours at the venue at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island without the arrival of the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris who is also a Special guest.
Obasanjo who was visibly sad for non-punctuality of the IGP wondered why the headship of the police was not seated to receive him and those that accompany him to the seminar.
The seminar is tagged First Biennial Special Training and Capacity Development.
Our correspondent gathered that the event was billed for 10.30am, but the IGP arrived the venue of the event at about 12.19 noon. While Obasanjo arrived at about 10.20am.
Impeccable Police source told our correspondent that the Assistant Commissioner of Police Kayode Aderanti arranged for a Police Helicopter to conveyed Obasanjo from his Otta farm to the venue of the training in Lagos without informing the IGP that the former president was the Special Guest of Honour.
The former President after waiting for hours without the arrival of the police boss, Obasanjo angrily stood up from where he was sitting and grabbed the microphone and blasted the police before he stormed out that if they are not ready they should not invited him again. “Please be ready next time you invite me to any of your events.”
Chief Obasanjo however said that training is important for the military and paramilitary to get the best out of the personnel.
He said: “broke out of a program which was taking place at Abeokuta involving UNESCO, 50 universities and 30 secondary schools and I decided to honour the police because of the respect I have for you and training of the officers.”
“I believe there is no substitute training for the military and paramilitary. When I heard that the police are embarking on this, I decided to come for a few minutes and encourage this new training scheme.”
He added that: “every human institution needs constant appraisal, regeneration of itself and training, because of the nature of your job must be in touched with whatever is new development in terms of your job, responsibility and up to date in other part of the world.”
Obasanjo said, “We have experts and practitioners in Nigeria coming together to give you the best and the latest. I want to wish you the best in this enterprise and I hope it is out to be sustained because training of 3 years ago in a continually changing world today is out of date.”
The AIG in charge of Zone 2, Kayode Aderanti in his opening address also emphasized the importance of training to be relevant in this changing world.
The seminar is tagged First Biennial Special Training and Capacity Development
Aderanti said: It is no longer news that the world today is changing. If you don’t acquaint yourself with up to date training today, you will be irrelevant.”
He said: “It is necessary for security agencies to be on top because of the changing faces of crime. We as security agency need to be a step ahead and this can only be achieved only through training.”
“We organized the training in line with the directive of the Inspector General of Police of democratic policing; I took it upon myself to put up a platform like this.”
“Am sure that at the end, participants will gain what will be put into their practice so that Nigerians will appreciate us whenever they have an encounter with the Nigeria Police.”
Meanwhile, The IGP who came after the departure of Obasanjo argued that he was not aware of the arrival of the former president saying democratic policing cannot be achieved without giving the right training to policemen.
Idris said, we need to reinforce our personnel to meet the yearnings of the people this process of actualizing our core values has just been given a quantum leap with this training.”
“This is a laudable program which will go a long way in improving the Nigeria Police force; it is a matter of time when the Nigeria Police will not only be celebrated at home but abroad.”
“It is my honor to declare this special training and capacity development open.” he added.