Senate probes N140bn police reform funds

Posted by admin Legislature, Nigerian Police, Senate Friday, November 15th, 2013

* Lawmakers renew call for state police

From ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, AbujaSenate yesterday ordered its Committee on Police Affairs to investigate the release and management of N140 billion which was meant for police reform. The Federal Government reportedly released a take-off grant of N78 billion, with further appropriations in national budgets spanning three years.
In 2011, N25 billion was appropriated, in 2012, the fund dropped to N15 billion and was raised in 2013 to N22 billion.

The decision of the Senate to investigate how the funds were used was sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator Abubakar Tutare who lamented the neglect of the force over the years in terms of vehicles, arms, as well as communication equipment.

In his motion, which was supported by 16 of his colleagues, Senator Tutare said these myriad of problems facing police had resulted into the force’s failure in the discharge of its statutory responsibility of prevention, detection of crimes and protection of lives and properties.

He said with the amount of money spent so far into police reform, there is still nothing to show that the programme is being felt.

Leading contributors to the motion, Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) said that problems facing the police go beyond funding and advocated a decentralization of the present structure.

“The problem of the Nigeria Police goes far beyond the issue of funding. It is structural, attitudinal and mentality. The mentality of the police is still rooted in our colonial history. No matter how much you bring, you are not going to change the police.

“The idea of a single police for all the country is inconsistent with a federal system. In the United States of America (USA), states, counties and even schools have their own police. So, we must go back to that fundamental structure of decentralizing the police. I have never heard of the IGP in the US. This motion affords us the opportunity to restructure the police in line with what is obtainable in a federalism.”

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu echoed Ndoma-Egba’s call for decentralization of the police, noting that security of the people should be paramount, considering the huge funds already deployed to police reforms

“I have always supported the call for decentralization of the police…N140 billion had been made available for the reforms from 2010 to 2013, unfortunately, with these huge funds, we are not going to achieve anything with the police.

“If we have a decentralized police, some of the incidents in Rivers and Yobe would not have happened because the institutions would have had their own police. We must make up our minds to secure our people by decentralizing the police.”

Education Committee Chairman, Sen. Uche Chukwumerije questioned why more funds were allocated to the military while very paltry funding is made available to the Police which is closer to the people.

His Federal Capital Territory (FCT) counterpart, Senator Smart Adeyemi, who faulted “the financial management of the police,” insisted that the chamber must “find out what is happening to their allocation and how money is being disbursed to the police. There is nothing wrong with having state police. But beyond that, we must begin to look at ways to make a policeman committed and passionate about his job by providing them with the good things of life; to make them know that we appreciate the sacrifices they are making for us.”

Also, Senator Oluremi Tinubu said: “The entire nation is not happy with the police. We requested for state police but many of us voted against it here. It’s sad that we are playing with human lives. When we check other developed countries, we see what they are doing for their police but we tend to play politics out of the security of our people. We, as the Senate, can do something about it right here before it even gets to the national conference…

-Sunwp_posts