Presidential Research & Communications Unit - National Security & Intelligence

The present administration is committed to refocusing the Police force through a combination of reforms, re-training and funding interventions.

Police Affairs minister Dr Ibrahim Lame said on Monday March 30 that the intervention would usher in dynamic measures for the police to rise to the security situation in the selected cities.

The Federal Government has also selected six cities from the six-geopolitical zones of the country in addition to Abuja where it has to give special attention to ensure effective policing and crime control.

Dr Ibrahim Lame said the strategy is part of Federal Government’s intention to take inventory of the security situation in the country with a view to checking the spate of kidnapping and other threats to lives and property.

The minister said the cities so selected for the security intervention will benefit according to their peculiarities.

“The kind of intervention we may give in Port Harcourt may not be the same Lagos may require and same goes for Abuja or Kano”, the minister said.

All police training institutions in the country will also be restructured while the curriculum of the colleges amended to meet modern standards of the force, one of which, he said, is community policing while physical infrastructure like offices and barracks would be attended to in a manner that would prove to all that the government of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was committed to the realisation of positive results from the exercise.

The minister said the Police Reform Implementation Committee which would be inaugurated next week would fully take charge of the recommendations which were identified as factors working against effective working of the police.

He also assured that a holistic approach to ensuring that the Nigerian Police worked to international standard would be fully realised when the committee is mobilised.

The National Council of State had at its last meeting in Abuja constituted a 10-man panel headed by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan on the implementation of the White Paper on the report of the Police Reform Committee. The panel, with the Minister of Police Affairs, National Security Adviser, Inspector General of Police and one Governor from each of the six geo-political zones as member, is also to look into the modalities for the intervention funding of the required reform of the Police. A total of N2.831 trillion and $150 million are expected to be spent on the reform.

The minister explained that the committee, which would be inaugurated next week, would starting from this year, begin to implement each of the over 125 recommendations of the technical committee of retired police officers set up by the President to examine the problems that have mitigated against the effective operation of the police force in the country.

Out of the 400 recommendations of this committee, he explained that the Federal Government had accepted 250. According to him, a total of N2.8 trillion would be required to actualise the recommendations within the next five years.

Realising the role the police play in any society and colossal amount required to implement the recommendations, the minister said all the tiers of government, businesses and investors in the country would be expected to contribute to the actualisation of government's drive to reposition the force.

Under the security sub-heading of the 2009 budget, the Federal Government is investing N5.738billion in the Police in a new initiative in enhancing security and community policing in 7 cities across the Nation, namely Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Maiduguri and Onitsha.

Government expects the Nigerian Police to reduce crime by 40% in these 7 cities over the next year.

The Interior Ministry is investing N1.8billion in prison infrastructure rehabilitation to improve the security of the prisons and provide better facilities for reorienting convicted felons for rehabilitation into society.