By Mercy Gadia Adi
The Nigerian House of Representatives has thrown its weight behind a motion calling for implementation of the Nigeria Police Academy Act to establish multiple campuses across the country.
The motion, moved by Rep. Kalejaiye Adeboye Paul (Phd), on Thursday on the floor of the green chamber, seeks to expand the Nigerian Police Academy to address the challenges facing the Nigerian police, including insecurity and inadequate manpower.
According to Rep. Paul, the existing police academy is not well-equipped or funded, and therefore lacks the capacity to accommodate large numbers of students.
“The average number of a police officer to a Nigerian is alarming, The ratio of a policeman to one man is so unbelievable because the police are not adequate.”Rep. Paul said.
He argued that expanding the police academy to other zones will help to increase the number of highly skilled manpower in the Nigerian police force.”We must increase the number of high level manpower that we train and to that we must expand the campuses to other zones so that we can have input from other zones, who are the highly skilled people who can also join the Nigerian police and get trained, and then they can take over some of the challenge that Nigerian police are facing today,” Rep. Paul said.
The debate on the motion highlights the importance of security as a fundamental principle of governance. As Rep. Kalejaye put it, “The protection of life is the fundamental principle of governance. You must be able to secure your people.” He emphasized the need for intellectual manpower to approach insurgency with some level of intellectual capacity.
The motion was met with a lot of opposition as some lawmakers called for more funding of the the already existing police academy rather than establishing campuses.
However Hon. Kalajaye during an interview with press men at his office said that establishing campuses shouldn’t be very cost invasive as underutilized existing police colleges could be upgraded into police academies .
“You don’t necessarily have to set up new establishments you can leverage on the existing facilities and upgrade some of the police colleges into police academy,” He noted.
Rep. Kalejaye Also added, that the idea is to encourage inclusivity and allow other regions to partake in the training of highly skilled manpower for the Nigerian police force. “Why must everybody go to one particular place?” Rep. Paul asked. “The law school used to be in Lagos, but today it operates in almost all geopolitical zones of the Federation. So if the law school can be decentralized, why don’t we decentralize the police academy?” He questioned.
“I believe that expanding the police academy will help to increase the number of highly skilled manpower in the Nigerian police force, which will in turn help to curb insecurity, and inadequate manpower,” He concluded.
The motion was referred to the House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs for further deliberations,