A former Inspector-General of Police, Mike Okiro, has alleged that the Federal Government is weakening the Nigeria Police Force by deliberately failing to adequately equip it, arguing that the development has contributed to the country’s worsening insecurity.
Okiro made the allegation on Tuesday at the first Daily National Dialogue on Security held in Abuja, describing the police as the lead agency for internal security.
He stated that the government’s failure to properly arm and support the force had undermined its capacity to effectively tackle crime.
“The government, I would say, is contributing to insecurity itself. The police is the lead agency for internal security. But the government deliberately, I say deliberately, without any fear of contradiction, disarmed the police. The result is insecurity,” he said.
The former police boss lamented that the police had been left to confront increasingly sophisticated criminal groups without the equipment needed to perform their constitutional duties.
He equally blamed the shortage of police personnel on years of failure to recruit replacements for officers leaving the service.
While recalling his tenure as Chairman of the Police Service Commission, PSC, in 2013, Okiro noted the commission discovered that there had been no recruitment into the force for five years despite significant losses through retirement, death and other causes.