RESTRUCTURE POLICE SERVICE (OCT 11, 2010)

With the beginning of the drilling of oil in this country, possibly in November or December, there is going to be a lot of people coming into the country.
We should anticipate that all manner of people — the good and the bad — will be coming.
It is in line with this that we must now start thinking and taking adequate measures to strengthen or restructure our police service to cope with the maintenance of law and order in the country.
There is the perception that the nature and the psychology of our constabulary are not to the level that can cope with the criminal activities that would come with the booming oil industry and economy.
The functions of our police service as stated in the Police Service Act 1970 (Act 350) are as follows:
Crime detection and prevention;
Arrest and prosecution of offenders;
Maintenance of law and order; and
Due enforcement of the law.
But we know for a fact that the police are not adequately performing these functions.
From their functions the police are entrusted with the responsibility for the maintenance of public order and prevention and detection of crimes.
They are empowered to enforce the law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in the country.
Even though their motto is Service with Integrity, we do not often see them performing their service with integrity.
Our policemen and women do not exude the confidence that they have the law backing them, and as such people do not recognise them.
It is about time we did something about our police service.
We should start looking at the calibre of people we enlist into the Service.
The entry point into the service should be changed to allow people with tertiary education or qualification to be enlisted as constables.
Of course, the training programme should lay more emphasis on subjects like Human Psychology, Rudiments of Law, Management, Social Sciences, Physical Training and Martial Arts.
The police uniform itself must be changed to give our policemen and women a look that would exude confidence and elicit respect from the citizenry.
The conditions of service of the police should be looked into to reflect modern policing.
These changes must start as soon as practicable because the reality is that in a few months the social life of this country is going to change and we will need a modern police service to deal with its attendant social problems.
We should not forget what happened in Nigeria during her oil boom in the mid-1970s when all sorts of criminal activities reared their ugly heads in that country.
The country had to form a para-military police – the Mobile Police – to deal with the criminal gangs that sprang there.
We should not wait for that to happen but start to restructure our police service to meet whatever comes up when we start drilling the oil in commercial quantities.