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| IGP Adamu |
The Nigeria Police has been identified as being
among the most poorly funded in the world.
This observation was made known during a
stakeholders’ roundtable meeting on Police Budget, organised by the Rule of Law
and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RLAAC) and the Nigerian Policing Program
(NPP).
The National Coordinator of Rule of Law and
Accountability Advocacy Centre (RLAAC), Mr Ikechukwu Nwanguma, said that for
many years, the force has been accused of poor service delivery and subject to
negative public perception.
He said: “Some comparative analysis of police
funding across countries in Africa and the world indicate that the Nigeria
police is among the most poorly funded. Former Senate President, Dr. Bukola
Saraki, in December 2017, while declaring open the public hearing on the Police
Trust Fund Bill said that the Nigeria Police is the most underfunded in the
world as well as the most underfunded agency of government in Nigeria.”
According to Nwanguma, there is what has been
described as the political dimension to resource allocation in Nigeria. He
explained that there are ministries, departments and agencies, which have
powerful voices pushing for better funding for them, unlike the police, which
has been described as an orphan.
Nwanguma said: “In a document presented at Senate
public hearing on the bill for the establishment of a police trust fund, the
immediate past Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, revealed that
in 2016, only N16.1 billion was allocated to the Nigeria Police for the capital
development, out of which only N10billion was released. He also revealed that
out of the N31.6billion allocated to the Nigeria Police in the 2017 budget,
only N8billion had so far been released.”
Idris had further argued that going by the present
low budgetary allocation, the Nigeria Police cannot achieve its goals in the
area of communication and information technology infrastructure, purchase of
operational vehicles, crafts and other facilities and provision of the full
complement of arms and ammunition, riot control equipment, protective gears,
armoury and forensic technology and scientific aids for investigation.
“Typically, overhead and capital costs take the
least portion of police annual budgets while personnel costs take the chunk.
For the 2018 fiscal year, for example, the NPF submitted an N332billion budget.
Only about 10 percent of the budget covered overhead and capital costs. The
remaining 90 percent was specifically for personnel costs for the service,”
said Nwanguma.
Nwanguma, who said that police underfunding has many
negative effects, including resulting in low dedication to duty and
performances, added that the way forward was for the government to look at
adequate funding for the police.
His words: “Adequate funding for the police was one
of the key recommendations by the Public Service Reforms in Nigeria in its 2010
report on reform in the Nigeria Police force. It said the police force should
be well funded, be self-accounting and in total control of their budget as
against the Ministry of Police Affairs, as at the time, controlling their
budget. All police zones, commands and formations should be involved in
providing inputs into the budgetary process according to their needs.”
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