Training, Equipment, Critical To Modern Policing – Okiro

Former Inspector General of Police, Mr Mike Okiro, say training and provision of modern equipment for personnel of the Nigeria Police Force is critical to modern policing.
Okiro told The Tide’s source yesterday in Abuja that policemen needed training and retraining to perform optimally, adding that adequate funding and equipment were key to successful policing of Nigeria.
“The police in a military regime is different from that in a democratic setting,’’ he said.
He said that if the police was provided with adequate funding and modern equipment, the current security challenges in the country would be controlled.
“Allocation to the police should be boosted and increased to enable them live up to the challenges.
“They require to be trained to meet up with the current trend in a democratic setting. The police is no longer a colonial outfit,’’ he said.
On recruitment into the police force, Okiro said that the Police Service Commission (PSC), which has the mandate to recruit, always ensured that criminals were not recruited into the force.
He said that it was difficult for the commission to check criminal records of applicants because of the absence of a database.
Okiro, who is a former Chairman of the PSC, said that the commission also engaged traditional rulers and top civil servants to attest to the characters of applicants from their communities.