Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has said officers and men of the Nigerian police must be held accountable for their actions in the discharge of their duties.
Gbajabiamila stated this, yesterday, in Abuja, when he spoke at a Public Policy Dialogue on “Policing and human rights in Nigeria” organised by the House Committee on Monitoring and Implementation of the Legislative Agenda of the ninth House.
He said the ninth House was committed to delivering a reformed police to the country because the parliament appreciates the fact that policing is at the heart of any fully functional state.
Gbajabiamila, while stating that without the ability to protect the citizens, the state losses legitimacy and the authority that flows from it, noted that police cannot be effective when there are no mechanism to hold the personnels accountable for their actions.
According to him, the reform objectives of the House include a comprehensive review of police recruitment, training procedures and practices as well as a drastic and rapid improvement in the welfare and well-being of police personnel from recruitment to retirement.
“I want to assure all of you in this room, all of you who are watching today from wherever you are, the ninth House of Representatives will do everything we can to deliver for the Nigerian people a policing system that works for every citizen. We will talk, we will engage, we will change laws, and we will amend the Constitution subject to the consensus of the Nigerian people. We will do everything that we have the power to do so that when the account of this moment is given, we will be counted for making the right choices and doing justice by our people,” Gbajabiamila stated.
He added that “effective policing is only possible when the policing institutions are grounded in the rule of law, when they are accountable and when the justice system in its entirety is fair to all who have cause to appear before it.
“We cannot have an effective policing system when the citizens do not have faith that the Police will treat them fairly every time, no matter the circumstance.
“We do not have an effective system of policing when the relationships between communities and the Police are defined by fear and mistrust. The Police cannot be effective when the mechanisms for accountability and discipline are too weak to identify, remove and prosecute rogue officers as a matter of course.”
The Inspector General Police, Mohammed Adamu, while speaking at a technical session on a proposed bill to repeal the Police Service Commission (PSC) Act 2001, stated that public distrust was one the biggest challenges confronting the force.
The IGP said in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protests, the police has initiated measures to regain the confidence of the public.
Adamu, who was represented by Deputy Inspector General of Police, Olushola Oyebande, said the force has embarked on training and retraining of personnel to enable them discharge their functions creditably.
“Going forward, there’s a lot of confidence building mechanism that’s being put in place to retrain the police to bring back confidence. Now a major problem is lack of confidence between the police and members of the public. That’s why the present administration were able to come up with community policing that all of us are trying to see how it will work now. It’s best form of policing, a global phenomenon and I was part of the team that went to do a lot of research.”
The police boss added that community policing project was also part of measures being put in place to bridge the gap between police and local communities.
Adamu, who appealed for time to enable the police make inputs into the proposed bill, stated that the force needs modern equipment and gadgets that are far ahead of the criminals to enable it reclaim it’s pride of place in security matters.