Headlines
What We Need for Effective Policing – IG
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, on Tuesday said apart from inadequate personnel, the Nigeria Police Force needed no fewer than 1,000 armoured personnel carriers and 250,000 assault rifles with corresponding ammunition.
Adamu, who disclosed this at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs, tagged, ‘Repositioning the Nigeria Police for an Enhanced Service Delivery, said the country needed 2,000,000 tear gas canisters and smoke grenades.
Other equipment the IG said the force required included 200,000 riot gunners and smoke pistols, 1,000 tracking devices, and 774 operational drones, among others.
He also lamented that poor remuneration scared best and suitable applicants away from the police.
As part of efforts to address problems confronting the NPF, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), last year gave the force the go-ahead to recruit 10,000 police officers.
Besides inadequate manpower, the police are also battling with other problems including dilapidated barracks, poor remuneration and low budgetary allocations.
The PUNCH had on August 23, 2019 reported that ten months after the President approved an increase in police salaries and allowances, policemen had yet to receive the pay rise. The President had in November 2018, approved an enhanced salary structure for the NPF.
At the House of Representatives event on Tuesday, the IG, who was represented by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Operations), Abdulmajid Ali, stated that aggregation of reports by the various police reform committees highlighted the major challenges hindering an optimal service delivery by the police.
In the document he presented to the committee, a copy of which our correspondent obtained, Ali said the challenges included gross underfunding, which he said was caused by inadequate budgetary appropriation and non-release of the limited appropriated funds.
He noted that the budgetary system still remained the envelope system, which he said was not capable of taking care of neither the needs nor wants of the force.
The envelope budgetary system involves the capping of funds at a particular amount notwithstanding the needs of an organisation.
The Punch
The first hostages freed from Gaza under a long-awaited ceasefire agreement are back in Israel. The news sparked jubilant scenes in Tel Aviv where large crowds gathered ahead of their release.
The three freed Israeli hostages – the first of 33 to be released over the next six weeks – are Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari. They are said to be in good health and are receiving treatment at a medical center in Tel Aviv.
In exchange, 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees are set to be released by Israel from Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military withdrew from several locations in southern and northern Gaza after the truce began earlier on Sunday, an Israeli military official told CNN.
Displaced Gazans have started returning to their homes, while the aid trucks laden with much-needed supplies have crossed into Gaza. Here’s what we know about how the ceasefire deal will work.
Hamas, despite suffering devastating losses, is framing the Gaza ceasefire agreement as a victory for itself, and a failure for Israel.
One of Hamas’ main goals for taking some 250 people during its brazen October 7, 2023, attack on Israel was to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. As Israel pounded Gaza in response, Hamas vowed not to return the hostages until Israel withdrew its forces from the enclave, permanently ended the war, and allowed for rebuilding.
Source: CNN
The leader of UK’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said she doesn’t want Britain to be like Nigeria that is plagued by “terrible governments.”
Speaking on Thursday at an event organised by Onward, a British think tank producing research on economic and social issues, Badenoch expressed fears that Britain may become like Nigeria if the system is not reformed.
“And why does this matter so much to me? It’s because I know what it is like to have something and then to lose it,” Badenoch told the audience.
“I don’t want Britain to lose what it has.
“I grew up in a poor country and watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer, despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation.
“I came back to the UK aged 16 with my father’s last £100 in the hope of a better life.
“So I have lived with the consequences of terrible governments that destroy lives, and I never, ever want it to happen here.”
Badenoch has been in the news of late after she dissociated herself from Nigeria, saying she has nothing to do with the Islamic northern region.
She also accused the Nigeria Police of robbing citizens instead of protecting them.
She said: “My experience with the Nigeria Police was very negative. Coming to the UK, my experience with the British Police was very positive.
“The police in Nigeria will rob us (laughter). When people say I have this bad experience with the police because I’m black, I say well…I remember the police stole my brother’s shoe and his watch.”
