For many Nigerians, the report that 229 cops misplaced their lives within the area of twenty-two months could be bloodcurdling. The determine comes right down to a median of 10 officers throughout all ranks a month. That is unlucky, grossly unacceptable and have to be checked at the same time as lack of life is a part of the contract they signed on recruitment. However the ache is that almost all of those deaths are avoidable.
The report claims that the reason for demise is because of the actions of non-state actors recognized generally as bandits, hoodlums, gunmen, Boko Haram terrorists, cultists and armed robbers.
These officers paid the supreme worth in making an attempt to discharge their duties of defending life and property. In different phrases, they have been killed within the line of obligation. With this report, it’s pointless to start to think about the variety of abnormal Nigerians who could have misplaced their lives too inside the identical interval, their solely offence being that they have been Nigerians ruled by a political elite that has misplaced its worth for human life.
The chance they’re uncovered to as they embark on the obligation of sustaining legislation and order is usually handled with levity and dismissed as a part of what they signed for by the authorities, whose a part of the cut price should be to make sure that they reside to proceed to hold out their project.
It’s common information {that a} Nigerian police officer capabilities like one on a suicide mission within the sense that the criminals they encounter as they perform their operations are higher motivated, armed with refined weapons, and working at a stage of intelligence enter that surpasses that of the Power.
That, in our opinion, is the crux of the matter. We have now repeatedly acknowledged on this web page that women and men of the Nigeria Police Power (NPG) need to be higher geared up for the hazardous job they’re known as upon to do.
In unlucky circumstances, their weapons are usually not adequate to guard them from the onslaught of criminals. When such weapons are usually not outmoded, the ammunition is inadequate to the purpose that they should account for each bullet expended.
It’s on document that in all of the disciplined forces, the Nigeria police officer is, unarguably, the poorest when it comes to remuneration and common welfare. Their incomes pale disastrously in significance to their jobs, creating conditions that encourage them to be unprofessional if they need to proceed delivering service to society. Most frequently, out of their poor earnings, they need to purchase for themselves uniforms and different equipment particular to their calling at the same time as they put their lives on the road for the love of nation.
We boldly say that the need to realize is imbued in cops and males. Their efficiency when posted to overseas missions, the place they’re given all of the instruments they require within the train of their obligation, has constantly confirmed this.
The plight of the police officer on obligation is compounded by the truth that they perform their operations blindly with little or no intelligence enter, making it appear foolhardy. It’s typically defined that it’s the nature of the job. However we disagree.
It isn’t the character of the job for a police crew to chase criminals in rickety automobiles. It’s a deliberate exposition to hazard for a police officer to go on an operation with ammunition that’s counted, recorded, and have to be accounted for and with a rifle that should be consigned to the museum. Equally, we argue in opposition to the pervasive observe within the drive whereby operatives depend on themselves for his or her welfare, stemming from the widespread assertion, ‘The Inspector-Common has given you a uniform; go and fend for your self’.
The aphorism that there have to be a fabric foundation for patriotism is extra apt in disciplined forces, particularly the police, given their jobs and the risk they pose not simply to the women and men involved but additionally to the nation at giant within the occasion of mission failure.
They’re a part of the society with households and prolonged relations who rely on them for day-to-day dwelling.
We have now constantly introduced the authorities’ consideration to the challenges confronting the nation’s safety businesses, a few of that are self-inflicted. The commonest is inter-agency rivalry, the absence of synergy and coordination in info administration. Using expertise in intelligence gathering is, to say the least, rudimentary. A police operation with out intelligence enter is akin to combating blindfolded with one’s arms tied.
In our opinion, the police haven’t any enterprise dropping this many officers inside a short while. We consider that the excessive command needs to be alarmed sufficient to take sensible measures to safeguard the lives of their very own women and men within the subject. We insist that policing is just not a suicide mission and shouldn’t be made to appear to be one. It’s noble to die gallantly in defence of the nation. It’s nobler nonetheless to defend the nation and keep alive to inform the story.
