SO… WHO’S DOING ANYTHING ABOUT POLICE COLLEGE?

Let me paint you a scenario and do feel free to raise your hands if you see where this is going. An incident happens, that's one, that causes outrage, that's two, the people complain all over the news, facebook, twitter, you name it, three, the government responds with a half-ass comment or maybe sets up a committee, if we’re lucky the president visits, four, a week or two, maybe a month, we forget, five! If you raised your hand before reaching five, you deserve your Nigerian passport. You’ve lived here long enough.

           

While the country went on its usual outcry of emotions over the state of the nation’s police college, not one public figure or the many millions on social media seemed to have offered a proper solution. We all mentioned how much money the ministry got, how the government has failed, the government in turn turned it into a show of eye service, the president showed up on his way to Togo or somewhere, a committee was set up and… well, that’s where the story ends apparently, for now. As of February 1^st as reported in The Vanguard, the inspector general of police Mohammed Abubakar has said renovation would begin once the funds come in… as of now, there’s no mention whether the funds have come in or not, not that I expect the Nigerian Police to shout it to the world if it indeed it has, but my point is it hasn’t been made clear what kind of renovations will take place. If I may, I would like to offer some suggestions.

          

For starters get better bunk beds, maybe ones made of good wood and not metal. Two, stop turning halls into bedrooms, this isn’t NYSC camp. I wonder why we have a mentality of trying to fit 150 people into one room, the fear of catching something from someone should be scary enough. Three of course is to get them a better dietary plan. One fish head for 50 people is pathetic in a country that can afford to dole out N5m to its conquering football players, but can’t feed the people they expect to protect them when next we decided to riot against the system (I’m just saying). Four, if feeding the police cadets is going to be a problem, increase their daily allowance from N150 to N1, 500. That would come to every cadet being given N45, 000 a month. That’s not much is it?!

           

Also the duration of training for the police cadets is 18 months; I quite like the Abu Dhabi model, where police cadets train for four years, before being full-time police officers. Why do I like this model? Because it makes more sense and can reduce unemployment. For starters the four years are divided thus: Year one is for theoretical work only, classroom stuff; the second year is the start of field work; years three and four are for psycho-analysis of criminals and criminal situations (we have plenty of those in Nigeria). Why do I think the four-year model can help reduce unemployment? Simple, if the cadets are given the option of leaving at any point of their four-year course, only the strong and well-intended will see it through, but those looking for some benefit from the government (the proposed N45, 000 a month) will join for about a year or two. Of course there has to be a limit to the number of applicants accepted. But this is Nigeria, I understand four years might seem absurd, so let’s make it two years from the present 18 months, because anyone can tell our officers are not well trained and seem to come out half-baked.

           
Well those are my suggestions to solving the police college dilemma and by extension police training. I don’t complain only, I offer solutions.