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Budget presentation for security agencies in Nigeria has become a normal yearly ritual that roundly engages the budget section and the leadership of each security agency.
The police, being the largest security agency in the country, remains one of the highest gulpers of the national budget. With a staff strength of over 320,000 men and women, the police is encumbered with an avalanche of demands from members of the public and other financial activities that would help its performance in its statutory duties.
The burdens of the police are numerous and with the increasing growth of the nation’s population and the widening scope and sophistication of criminals around the country, it became more apparent and expedient that the police boss, Mr. Adamu Muhammed, had to approach the House Committee on Police Affairs to defend the 2019 budget proposal for the Nigeria Police, seeking better funding of the service.
Adamu had recently gone to the National Assembly with a bag of lamentations, citing the previous year’s pitiful situation whereby, out of the capital budget estimate of N342.9 billion proposed for the 2018 fiscal year, the police was given an appropriation of N25.5 billion.
Even if the budget allocated was fully released, the needs of the police are always on the increase. The challenges are too numerous to contend with. The question is, why would the police boss be lamenting before the honourable members? What did he see since January 2019 after mounting the seat of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP)?
Such lamentation cannot be just for media hype nor was the lamentation expressed to attract the attention of the legislators. His lamentation can be seen from the point of view of a prophet leading 320,000 strong and trained men and women in the art of saving lives. Men and women from all the nooks and crannies of the country, and constitutionally obeying his orders, but lacking the financial power to provide for them all the technical machines, standard firearms, welfare, housing, uniforms, hardware like armoured vehicles, re-training, etc. The budget peanuts usually allocated to the police has a history.
When the police tried to obstruct the coup d’etat that urshered in the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde ldiagbon, it was believed that the new police equipment was too intimidating for the police. So, after the resistance from the police in preventing the military from overrunning the police control room in Lagos during the 1983 coup, the military had no other excuse but to take over all the armoured vehicles in the police armoury. The armoured vehicles were acquired during the tenure of Sunday Adewusi but they were impounded and confiscated during Etim lnyang’s tenure as IGP, and were all transferred to the military, while their she-berreta guns were transferred to the newly created National Security Organisation (NSO), now DSS, and replaced with long guns known as Mark-4. That was not all, the police force was further subjected to depleting budget funding. Most times, only money enough to pay salaries was released, while capital budget was denied the police. The police budget was almost like a mirage, not sufficient to take adequate care of most police needs. Past IGPs must have stories to narrate concerning their challenges with budgets already approved by the National Assembly. It has continued to be like passing through the eye of a needle. This writer experienced this as a worker in the police headquarters, noticing the frequent visits of the IGP to the Minister of Finance’s office to solicit for the release of that year’s budget. It is also on record that the denial of its appropriated budget resulted in the first police public demonstration during the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, and, consequently, the IGP, Mr. M.K.A. Smith, was sent on retirement.
Each time a military general drops his uniform and transforms into a civilian politician, it has been observed that the police are usually de-budgeted, insecurity increases. Criminals take undue advantage to attack citizens. Moreover, the morale of the men and women in police uniform gets dampened.
When funds are not made available to the police force to effectively carry out its statutory functions, many issues crop up, to the detriment of the nation. Nations around the world pay better attention to their police and ensure that their services are adequately rewarded.
IGP Adam succinctly captured the mood thus, “Arising from the limitations of funding occasioned by the budgetary constraint, most of the requirements that would enable the force to perform are never met.”
It is worrisome that both the country and the government expect much action from the police but pay lip service to their needs. Examples abound of far smaller countries that cannot be equated with Nigeria but cannot be compared when issues of financing their police is concerned. For example, the Toronto Police Service, in Canada, that received a $1.026 billion (N3.69 trillion) operating budget for 2019. The budget request represents a $30 million increase. Also, for Cape Verde, in West Africa, its Safety and Security Directorate’s proposed capital budget is just over R103 million and its proposed operating budget is close to R3.5 billion.
From the trend of situations n the Nigeria, it seems the police is being tailored to fail. No wonder, despite the lamentations of previous leaders of the police, the situation looks irredeemable. That is why, the police seems helpless in critical insecurity situations in the country.
(To be continued)
SECURITY FILE thumbs up one of our ardent readers who was recently elevated
to Acting Comptroller General of Customs (ACG) and posted to the Customs headquarters in Abuja, for rejecting N150 million bribe. He has been appointed as the secretary to the Customs board.
Meanwhile, NAFDAC has also celebrated Mr. Bashir Abubakar. Congratulations for being a role model to the younger generation.
