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By Godwin EtakibuebuJust only yesterday, November 26, 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari reviewed both salary and allowances of men and officers of the Nigeria Police Force upwards when he met with the Police Service Commission at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. Someone told me that the President also touched on the pension, this vital Organisation enjoys, upwardly.
Unlike the “mixed-grill” approach of the main opposition party, the People Democratic Party, to the development, in praising the President suspiciously and questioning his [President Buhari] intention of bringing the increase at this time “when 2019 general election is very close”, I appreciate and applaud the President whole-heartedly on this development.
Either the President brought about the increment for reasons of strengthening the police for the assignment ahead or not, we should learn to appreciate what is good at once and we must accept that there is reason for designing, inauguration and implementation of any policy at all times. Or is there any time in human history that things just involve without reason? Has any politician in the Nigerian clime develops a policy that will not enhance and strengthen his/her political agenda?
The question that should be occupying our collective attention at this point in time ought to be the chances of the new policy bringing to fruition the aims and objectives it was meant to drive. This is because the President, while unveiling this good news to the Police Service Commission enumerated why it is necessary to imbibe and accommodate good welfare package for the Police now as he was quoted as saying that “to give attention to the welfare and operational needs of the Nigeria Police Force with a view to restoring its lost primacy in the internal security framework of the country.”
By implication, the Nigeria Police Force, as presently operated, is in variance with its concept of being relevant to the community it was meant to protect. Is this not the Police Force; a Police that is moving up the ladder on daily basis as being in war with the citizenry, we have in today’s Nigeria? Like most Nigerians would admit, l would say yes. The President said more than this.
“I am pleased to make the increase in salaries and allowances in the hope that it will increase the performance index of the police and strengthen Nigeria’s internal security system”, he said, after observing the total loss of confidence on the Nigeria Police Force by the citizenry. “From Taraba to Sokoto to the South-South, people don’t feel secure until they see the military. The military should be reserved for higher tasks while the police should be able to cope well with the challenges of armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom and such crimes.” On this premise, l would adjudge President Buhari’s intention for the salary and allowance increase to the Nigeria Police Force as good enough, at least for now.
Yes, he may have a hidden agenda of “a stronger and better-equipped Police Force to prosecute his ambition of “sailing through the 2019 general election by all means”; as we saw in deployment of a 40,000-man police force to Osun State general election in order “to capture the place for the ruling Party”, we should not forget in hurry that the strong 40,000 officers and men deployed could not win the election for the All Progressives Congress. Instead, the trade by barter initiated by the two major Parties [PDP and APC] at the market place of Senator Iyiola Omisore; where the APC became a better dealer/bargainer than the PDP, won the election for the former.
The point being made here is the reality that the Nigerian people, at any material particular, would be better off with a stronger police force, well encourage with adequate remunerations. For if the truth must be told, as long as we pay peanuts to officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force, so long shall we be having, in return, monkey services. A wage and salary that can never be regarded as “take-home pay” can only make a hungry man, equipped with sophisticated arms and ammunitions, escorting billions of naira from one point to another at all times, protecting politicians with their stolen wealth, to become more vicious to society at all times and himself sometimes.
However, increase in salary and allowance alone cannot be an end on its own. It should be seen as a means to an end instead. It is therefore logical to reject the absurdity that salary and allowance increase alone will bring the Police Force of the Nigerian Peoples’ dream. No, that cannot be as long as we have a very flawed-type of appointment into the place of leadership in the Police Force, the poison of degradation shall remain a permanent feature of our Police organization. Flowing from wrong leadership cadre in the Police Force are many other things that needed to be put in place before we can have the Police of our Eldorado.
Since the Police Force of any given country remains the reflection of the people of that country in its perception and cultural heritage; it is safe therefore to conclude that the people deserve the police they have.
What this implies infinitely is that there is need for a comprehensive overhauling of our Police Force; which the increase on welfare packages is an integral part, but this cannot be done in isolation to other segment of the Nigerian society.
Take for example the Nigerian Military where the salary of officers is proportionally comfortable [I don’t know that of soldiers], and unfortunately, malfeasance conducts bordering on fraud, corruption and diversion is still a terminal rope of Damascus hanging on most of these officers.
This allegation against our military officers is gaining ground more with the gory stories coming from theater of war in the North/East where Boko Haram is inflicting colossus calamity on soldiers, due, as alleged, to illegal diversion of the funds meant for the prosecution of the war into private pockets. The take-away lesson of this analogy is the fact that increase in salary and all other remunerations alone without increase in character of morality would remain perpetually an invading danger.
My final word to President Muhammadu Buhari therefore, is to thank him for the show of extending human feeling and milk to the men of the Nigeria Police Force but to urge him to do more than this. My candid expectation is for him to start from the top by sacking the incumbent Inspector General of Police, more so when the man is always in the habit of disobeying him [President Buhari told us this personally], reorganize the top hierarchy of the leadership and insulate both officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force from partisan politics.
Can PMB faithfully implement the latter? Let us sit down and look.
Godwin Etakibuebu; a veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.
Mobile: +234-906-887-0014
Twitter: @godwin_buebu
- You can listen to this author [Godwin Etakibuebu] every Monday, 9:30-11am, on Lagos Talk 91.3 FM live, in a weekly review of topical issues, presented by The News Guru [TNG]