Policemen now carry handbags for VIP’s wives, abandon their crime-fighting duties, says El-Rufai

A majority of the personnel of the Nigeria Police Force are not engaged in police duty, despite the shortage of manpower in the force.

This is the position of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State who is worried about the rate of insecurity in the country.

Speaking during his appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, the governor insisted that decentralising the police was the way to go for Nigeria.

“We have always made a very strong argument that one centralised police in a federation does not work; Nigeria is the only country in the world that is a federation that has only one police force.

“We have made the argument that states should be allowed to have their own police and even the local governments should be allowed to have community policing,” Governor El-Rufai stated.

He added, “The number of policemen we have in Nigeria is inadequate, it is less than half of what we need and a large percentage of them are engaged in non-police duties like carrying handbags of the wives of important people.

“We need to have a greater footprint of police in Nigeria and the only way to achieve that in a fast track manner is to amend the Constitution and put policing on the concurrent list as recommended by the APC True Federalism Committee so that we have more policemen.”

The governor decried that it was only in Nigeria among other countries in the world where a federation has only one police force.

He said the running cost of the police, including the provision of funds for vehicles, fuel, and communication, among others was the responsibility of the state governments.

Governor El-Rufai also condemned the situation in which governors have very limited or no control over the affairs of the police in their states.

He said, “I am frustrated in my state, many governors are frustrated in their states; we are called chief security officers only in name, we have no control over cohesive instruments of the state.

“We are almost helpless. The #EndSARS protest clearly showed the limit to the control of governors over the police and the military.”  (Channels TV)