Etannibi Alemika, a Professor of Criminology and Sociology of Law, has said the rot in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is a reflection of the quality of governance.
Alemika cautioned Nigerians to stop blaming officers of the NPF for the unwholesome practices in the institution emphasizing that the police are a dependent variable and agents of the state which do not function on their own.
He stated this in Ibadan during a two-day citizen’s engagement Workshop on police reform in Nigeria.
The workshop which had in attendance members of the civil society organizations, media representatives and security agencies was supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and German Agency for Development.
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‘’What you see in the police is a reflection of the quality of government. The government is the principal while the police are the agents. You are not going to have better policing unless you have good governance. Police are reflecting national ethos,” the professor said.
Also speaking, the Acting Executive Director, CLEEN Foundation, Peter Maduoma, said the organisation believed that a transformed Nigeria Police is achievable by engaging the citizenry in brainstorming on ways of transforming the Nigeria police into a law-abiding and people-friendly institution.
He said the issue of police reform must be an exercise all stakeholders should be interested in.
Maduoma said: ‘’The issue of police reform in our dear nation is an exercise we all as stakeholders must continue to do until we have a Nigeria Police Force that can be said to be the citizen’s law enforcement agency.
“A police force that is truly focused on securing life and property of everyone in the nation as against a police force that is mainly preoccupied with providing security for the government in power and politically-exposed people. This is even more crucial in the light of the current heightened insecurity in the nation.
“For us in the CLEEN Foundation and our development partners the UNDP, we will continue to support the Nigeria Police Force through various interventions until the desired transformation is achieved. We strongly believe that a transformed Nigeria Police is achievable but not without the engagement of the citizenry in brainstorming and suggestion of constructive and implementable ways of transforming the Nigeria police into a law abiding and people-friendly Police’’.
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