The Chairman, Board of Trustees, Nigeria Police Trust Fund, IGP Suleiman Abba (retd) has described lack of adequate funding and crime-fighting equipment, as well as training and welfare, as factors militating against the effectiveness of the Nigeria Police Force.
In a statement issued by the Public Relations Officer of the NPTF, CSP Olabisi Okuwobi retired IGP Abba disclosed this while chatting with journalists in Abuja during the weekend.
The NPTF Chairman said that different committees on Nigeria Police Reforms had also identified the same challenges.
“That is why even the reform committees that have looked into the problems of police and ethical conditions, summed up into four the problems of inadequate funding, the problem of inadequate manpower, the problem of lack of special care about the welfare of the police and the quality of the recruitment and training,” he stated.
He went further to say that the Nigeria Police Trust Fund, created by President Muhammadu Buhari, would soon start addressing all the challenges being faced the Nigeria Police Force. Abba said that the NPTF Board’s mandates included training and retraining of police personnel, procurement of state-of-the arts equipment for fighting crimes and improvement of police welfare.
This, he added, involved both barracks and office accommodations.
The Chairman stated further that the Trust Fund was aimed at being an interventionist organisation for the Nigeria Police Force.
According to Abba, “…the police now have another source.
“In summary, the objective of the Trust Fund is mainly to improve on the budgets of the Nigeria Police.”
Urging police officers nationwide to be service-oriented, he assured them of ensuring that the Fund on trust to the Board would be put to judicious use, solely to radically improve on the totality of the Nigeria Police Force.