ILLEGAL POLICE DEPLOYMENT .
THE Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Parry Osayande (retd), took a critical look at the Nigeria police recently and gave a damning verdict that is most unsettling. He alleged that the rot in the service has yet to abate and indeed may be worsening. He attributed the ineffectiveness of the service in the performance of its statutory duty to misuse and misapplication of resources and absence of accountability via award of phony contracts and/or outright diversion of available resources. Corruption in the Police according to Osayande has assumed a frightening dimension with officers involved breaking their oath of office without qualms.WHAT decent society will have police officers that facilitate the escape of criminals from lawful custody, collude with and shield criminals rather than checkmate their nefarious activities, escort contraband, obtain money from suspects to close case files and steal from suspects and accident victims? The police are allegedly committing all of these heinous crimes and even more. The Senate Committee on Police Affairs was told this much by the PSC Chairman when he appeared before the committee recently.THERE is a sense in which it would be difficult to dismiss this litany of crimes as mere allegations. One, the person who made them is not only a major stakeholder who speaks from a position of knowledge, having been a senior police officer, but he is someone who is vicariously liable for the misdeeds of the police by reason of his position. Two, even in the absence of any empirical evidence about corruption in the service, extortion of money from motorists in the streets and on the highways by some men and officers of the police is a common but nauseating phenomenon which perhaps has not escaped the sight of any adult Nigerian. In essence, Osayande may not have said anything about the decadence in the police that many Nigerians are not aware of.HOWEVER, the revelation that of the 330, 000 policemen in Nigeria, 100,000 of them are attached to very few individuals as guards while about 150 million Nigerians are to be policed by the balance of 230,000 is an unpleasant news. It is regrettable and unacceptable. With a ratio of 330,000 policemen to 150 million people, Nigeria is grossly under policed and to reduce this inadequate figure by inappropriate and unreasonable deployment of about a third of the entire force is deplorable. It is equally disappointing that some of the 100,000 policemen that are allegedly deployed to individuals are assigned trivial duties like carrying the handbags of the wives of rich men and running menial errands for them. Again, and this is a paradox, many individuals who are beneficiaries of police private deployment are said to be people of questionable character who have deep pockets. Consequently, the police authorities may be inadvertently using the police to protect criminals.THE policemen involved in this type of duties may not be complaining because such duties could sometimes be rewarding as both the officers and their superiors are usually generously rewarded by the beneficiaries of such inappropriate police deployment. The fact is that such deployment is done at the expense of effective protection of life and property which is the primary responsibility of the police.IT is interesting that the PSC has made this damning disclosure about the police but the Commission has failed to inform Nigerians what it has done to reposition the service and what difficulty it is facing in its effort. The PSC is constitutionally empowered to exercise disciplinary control over the members of the Nigeria police force. Specifically section 30(b) of part 1 to the 3rd schedule to the 1999 Constitution (as amended) confers on the Commission powers to dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over persons holding offices in the Nigeria police other than the Inspector-General of police. The implication is that the PSC can actually rein in the seemingly complicated factors militating against effectiveness of policing in Nigeria if it is willing to perform its statutory duties. In other words, the PSC should go beyond listing and dimensioning the challenges in the service; it should take steps in tandem with the Constitution to halt the drift. Otherwise it will be guilty of not living up to its responsibilities under the law.
PICKING THE POCKET OF A POLICEMAN
Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Parry Osayande told national legislators recently that some cops stole from corpses. This must have been the reason the man showed scant respect for a policeman at an accident scene in Abeokuta on Monday, October 17. He tried to pick a policeman’s pocket and he was caught.
THIS is the story told by the police, a force that does not draw falsehood from an inexhaustible fount, contrary to the claim of some people that it does. The man protested his innocence as he was being led away by two policemen. It is easy to see why. He is a tall, lean man with long arms. They are arms that make picking pockets as easy as ABC.
THE man’s argument must also have been that a policeman is not likely to notice when his pocket is being picked. It is not that a policeman is inattentive. Indeed, his eyes are more restless than those of a predatory bird. A policeman feathers his own nest so well that strange, probing fingers will not go deep enough to alert him to the violation of his pocket. The N2O notes in his pockets provide a noiseless cushion. Policemen have great trouble recognising crisp naira notes. They are used to the crumpled naira notes that everyone knows commercial bus drivers and motorcycle taxi operators happily shower them with.
OR did the man believe that by picking the policeman’s pocket, he was taking what did not rightly belong to the policeman and that his stealthy method was a lot more refined than the dark growls of the men in black?
Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Parry Osayande told national legislators recently that some cops stole from corpses. This must have been the reason the man showed scant respect for a policeman at an accident scene in Abeokuta on Monday, October 17. He tried to pick a policeman’s pocket and he was caught.
THIS is the story told by the police, a force that does not draw falsehood from an inexhaustible fount, contrary to the claim of some people that it does. The man protested his innocence as he was being led away by two policemen. It is easy to see why. He is a tall, lean man with long arms. They are arms that make picking pockets as easy as ABC.
THE man’s argument must also have been that a policeman is not likely to notice when his pocket is being picked. It is not that a policeman is inattentive. Indeed, his eyes are more restless than those of a predatory bird. A policeman feathers his own nest so well that strange, probing fingers will not go deep enough to alert him to the violation of his pocket. The N2O notes in his pockets provide a noiseless cushion. Policemen have great trouble recognising crisp naira notes. They are used to the crumpled naira notes that everyone knows commercial bus drivers and motorcycle taxi operators happily shower them with.
OR did the man believe that by picking the policeman’s pocket, he was taking what did not rightly belong to the policeman and that his stealthy method was a lot more refined than the dark growls of the men in black?
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