Civil society welcomes plan to clean up police

A plan by Nigeria's government to clean up and rebuild the police force so that it conforms to the rule of law and the needs of modern society has been welcomed by local civil society bodies. "The reorganisation should involve civil society and community groups in every police division," Innocent Chukwuma, executive director of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education in Lagos, told IRIN. Since independence in 1960, analysts say, there has been no reorientation of the police. The force has adopted and maintained colonial methods of policing which, Chukwuma said, "were widely despised". Nigeria's police force is reputed for its inefficiency, corruption and brutality, especially under the regime of the late military ruler, General Sani Abacha. The job of gaining public acceptability for the law enforcers has now gone to Police Minister David Jemibowon. The former army officer announced at the weekend that he would retire 50,000 policemen and recruit 125,000 new men and women. However, civil society bodies said more far-reaching measures were needed. They want much higher minimum educational entry requirements, human rights training in police academies and foreign advisors in training and modern police techniques. "The force is made up of illiterates," Festus Okoye, executive director of Human Rights Monitor in Kaduna, told IRIN. "We need to weed out those who cannot be in a modern force and subordinate the force to the rule of law." Nigeria now has to contend with rising levels of white-collar crime which, analysts say, the police are mentally and materially ill-equipped to fight. Okoye calls for high school graduates to be recruited as constables while Chukwuma wants the National Certificate of Education (a two-year post-high school diploma) as the minimum educational requirement. Both Okoye and Chukwuma say that many more women should be recruited into the force and that policewomen should perform the same tasks as their male colleagues. For now, women are confined to clerical tasks and are not weapon trained. Married women cannot join the police. A policewoman may marry three years after entering the force, Chukwuma said, but must submit the identity of her future spouse to a police board for clearance. "Men," he said, "are not required to do this."