Lagos “under-policed”, commissioner says

Lagos State Police Commissioner Mike Okiro said on Friday at a news conference that Nigeria’s economic capital was “under-policed”, AFP reported. He told journalists that while Lagos had a population of over 10 million it only had some 10,000 policemen. Citing the internationally recommended ratio of one policeman to 400 people, he said the city did not have enough officers, AFP reported. Recent lapses in security in Lagos include the abduction and killing of a senior police officer, reportedly by a militant faction of Oodua People’s Congress, a Yoruba pressure group. President Olusegun Obasanjo recently threatened to impose a state of emergency in Lagos if Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu failed to stop the deterioration of security in the city. In a bid to fight rising crime in the country, President Olusegun Obasanjo recently ordered the recruitment of 40,000 policemen annually for the next four years.