Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday, urged the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, to rid the Nigeria Police Force of bad eggs and instil sanity in the law enforcement agency.
He said the IGP must check all the beggarly attitude usually demonstrated by policemen and put an end to the mounting of illegal road blocks by across the country. Obasanjo spoke when Arase paid him a courtesy visit at his Presidential Hilltop Mansion in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The IGP, who was accompanied by the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone 2, Bala Hassan, and Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Abdulmajid Ali, also paid a courtesy visit to Governor Ibikunle Amosun.
The former president, who also expressed concern over the security situation of Nigeria, observed that the country is grossly under-policed. Describing the nation’s police force as “the most maligned, condemned and unappreciated government agency in Nigeria,” Obasanjo said the police drew negative perception due to the activities of bad eggs.
He said despite the fact that the police remained the first port of call for many Nigerians, who experience security breaches, they still have negative disposition towards the police. He, however, urged Arase to see the unappreciative attitude of Nigerians as a challenge and work towards addressing it by flushing the “bad eggs” out of the system.
In sanitising the police, Obasanjo said beggarly attitude such as “Oga Wetin you carry; Oga your boys are here o” must disappear.
But the challenge is to get the bad eggs out of the system,” he added. The former president also urged Nigerians to support the police, in terms of volunteering information and providing intelligence, towards enhancing the nation’s security. While noting that Nigeria is currently under-policed, Obasanjo advised the nation’s authorities to recruit more men into the police force.
He said: “What amazes me nowadays is that almost everybody, whether in public or private sector, wants a police orderly to give them confidence and to give them a sense of security.
“With a population of about 180 million, we are grossly under-policed. When you take the population of New York and the number of police that they have, you would see that we are under-policed. “For the police to be efficient, they need information, they need intelligence and they need the assistance of all of us.
In fact, all of us must be police not in uniform.” In his remarks, Arase said he was in the state to assess the level of preparedness of the police in providing adequate security during the burial of the late Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo in Ikenne-Remo on November 25.
