THE Federal Government may have now gotten a formidable instrument to effect sweeping reforms that will change the face of the Nigeria Police for good.
The roadmap to a new police was the fulcrum of the final report of the Civil Society Panel on Police Reform in Nigeria headed by Ayo Obe, which was presented to the public recently in Abuja.
Specifically, the report recommended guaranteed security of tenure for the Inspector General of Police (IG) with one termlimit of five years and a transparent process that include open application process, screening of applicants, Senate hearing and confirmation of the most competent person for the police topmost job.
The panel observed that the mission statement of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) as provided in section 4 of the Police Act is antiquated, hence the need for a change.
It also recommended that the Ministry of Police Affairs be renamed Ministry of Public Safety and Security to coordinate the activities of government in the field of public security and discontinue the current practice of repelling the bureaucracies of the NPC and the Police Service Commission (PSC).
The new ministry, the report said, should be saddled with the responsibilities of regulatory framework for community initiative on crime prevention and creating anincentive regime to ensure that they comply with the law and eschew human rights abuses in carrying out their functions in ruralareas or inner city communities not often covered by police patrols.
In strict compliance with the right to associate, which is guaranteed by section 40 of the constitution, the panel report recommended that police officers be encouraged and permitted to form a Police Association for the purpose of collective bargaining with a proviso that they are barred from using the strike option in pressing for their concerns or demands for better condition of service.
As a mean of checking corruption among thepolice, the panel recommended the deployment of new media technologies to map police corruption in addition to the resuscitation of X-Squad to corruption hotspots as identified in the mapping using Geographic Positioning System.
They need change in that force.Corruption has taken over them.All they know is bribe