By Olugbenga Salami
Minister of Police Affairs, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam has charged the Nigeria Police Trust Fund, NPTF to equip the Nigeria Police Force, NPF with both local and foreign sophisticated professional training to enable them to tackle terrorism, kidnapping and other high crimes in the country.
Gaidam, according to the Deputy Director of Press, Bolaji Oladimeji, spoke while receiving briefing alongside the Minister of State, Hajia Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim by the Executive Secretary of NPTF, Alhaji Abdullahi Bala at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.
Reacting to funding issues on the professional training for police personnel outside the country, he urged NPTF to ensure that the process of training officers is strictly managed within the available funds rather than jettison necessary training for police personnel.
He said: “Instead of waiting to send 20 personnel abroad, you can send 10 that can be accommodated within available funds rather than jettison crucial professional training abroad that will impact their output to the nation.
“The Executive Secretary and his team should come up with a strategic plan on sending personnel on training outside the country while continuing to patronize local training available in the country. We need to send some of our personnel outside Nigeria to get highly sophisticated training that would enable them to tackle crimes in the country.”
The minister recalled the problem of Boko Haram that started in Bornu State in 2009 before it spread to Yobe State in 2011 when he was the governor noting that it was not easy then despite the collaboration of both policemen and the military and the need to get well-trained personnel that will deal decisively with terrorists and kidnappers.
In her contributions, the Minister of State, stated that in perfecting statecraft international norms and best practices will be deployed in training and retraining, operations standardized, infrastructure updated, work tools to strengthen the professionalism of security personnel.
“It has to be standardized and tailored towards what will work for the police ecosystem and our population. It should not be about procurement alone but strategy planning that will focus on professionalism, patriotism, and transparency because our sector is one of the priority plans of Mr. President and it is critical to the National security of the country,” Hajia Sulaiman-Ibrahim said.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of NPTF, pointed out that all the training programs have been successfully executed and for the Construction and Rehabilitation of Police Offices and Barracks, one hundred and eight (109) projects have been completed (100%), while thirty (30) projects are near completion (70 – 90%), and twenty-eight (28) projects are still on-going (01 – 69%)
He enumerated the challenges of his organization concerning the delay in the take-off of the NPTF activities from June 2019 to May 2020; the delay in annual budget approval for the Fund; some inconsistencies in the NPTF Act, 2019 such as the commencement date; problems of 0.005% levy and its collection from companies in Nigeria among others.
