Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 11 Command, Mukan Joseph Gobum, on Wednesday, January 27, 2022, counselled people from South West part of Nigeria to encourage their youths to join the Nigeria Police Force so that they will be well represented in securing the nation.
The AIG gave the counsel at the one day recruitment sensitization /town hall forum organized by the Police Service Commission (PSC), which took place at Kola Daisi Civic Centre, Idi Ape, Ibadan, Oyo State.
According to a statement by SP Benjamin Ayeni, who is the zonal police spokesman, AIG Gobum, represented by Deputy Commissioner in charge of the Zonal Criminal Investigation Department, Ganiyu Salami, said that statistics showed that in the just-concluded 2021 recruitment of constables, 81,005 candidates applied, while less than 10 percent were from the Southern part of the country.
He charged traditional rulers, religious organisations, political leaders and parents to encourage the youths to join the police force, so that there would be no complain of marginalizing the Southerners in the future.
In his opening remarks, the PSC Chairman, IGP Musiliu Smith (retd), stated that federal government had approved recruitment 100,000 policemen within the next five years, advising that sincere efforts should always be made to encourage upright and responsible citizens to apply for recruitment and be properly screened.
Smith made it known that he had been going round to appeal to stakeholders to encourage people from the group-political zone to come out for recruitment.
“If our responsible, educated and upright young ones are motivated to join and remain in the police, our country will definitely be on the way to having right number of men and women needed for an efficient police force,” the PSC chairman said.
Present at the stakeholders’ forum were the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Ngozi Onadeko, who was represented by the command’s Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration, Gabriel Dibie; representatives of both Oyo and Osun state governors, traditional rulers from both states, including Ooni of Ile-Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, who was represented; the Onpetu of Ijeru, Oba Sunday Oladapo Oyediran; Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Rasheed Akanbi; Timi of Ede, Oba Munirudeen Adesola Lawal; President of Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII); South West leaders of the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC); its Oyo and Osun state chairmen and other critical stakeholders.
They all highlighted, among other challenges, poor remuneration for police personnel, lack of good welfare packages, lack of logistics to work with, disorganized promotion system in the police, incessant general transfer out of geopolitical zone, lack of respect for policemen in the society and stress of the work, saying that these were part of the reasons youths were not encouraged to join the Nigeria Police Force.
Giving a vote of thanks, the Commissioner of Police in Osun State, Olawale Olokode, expressed the belief that with the cooperation of all security stakeholders, the highlighted challenges would be surmounted.
