House of Reps cries foul over FG’s plan to recruit 8,000 police officers

House of Representatives on Thursday faulted the plan by the Federal Government to recruit 8,000 police officers.

The chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs, Bello Kumo (APC-Gombe), at a briefing on Thursday, said a planned recruitment of 8,000 police officers as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari, was grossly inadequate, considering the population of Nigeria.

The House committee also advised the Federal government to recruit the police officers from every local government of the country.

Already, Nigeria has 774 local government areas, with several of these local councils, densely populated. She, however, currently has a paltry police workforce of less than 400,000.

“The committee has found that even the 10,000 police officers earlier slated to be recruited, is not enough, yet, even that number, has been reduced to 8,000. But our advice as a House, is for the recruitment to be rationed according to the population of local governments”, Kumo stated.

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Kumo also decried the disagreement between the Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Maigari Dingyadi and the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, over who would supervise the recruitment, saying “there is a clash of egos and interests between the IG of Police, the Police Service Commission and the Minister of Police Affairs on who will carry out the directive of Mr. President to recruit 10,000 police officers”.

He noted that such a sensitive and very important assignment should not elicit “unnecessary clash of egos while people are dying in droves from attacks and killings.”

Recall that President Buhari had some time ago, directed the Inspector General of Police to recruit an additional 10,000 police officers to assist in tackling flashpoints across the country.

The Committee on Police Affairs is also expected to set up an enquiry, on reasons for the delay in recruiting the officers.

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