Insecurity: Gaidam asks Nigeria Police Trust Fund to equip officers with professional training

 The Minister of Police Affairs, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam, has asked the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF) to equip the Nigeria Police Force with both local and foreign sophisticated professional training to enable them tackle terrorism, kidnapping and other high crimes in the country.

Gaidam, according to the Deputy Director of Press, Bolaji Oladimeji, spoke on Tuesday while receiving a briefing alongside the Minister of State, Hajia Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, by the Executive Secretary of NPTF, Alhaji Abdullahi Bala, at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.

Reacting to funding issues for professional training for police personnel outside the country, he urged the NPTF to ensure that the process of training officers is strictly managed within the available funds rather than jettisoning necessary training for police personnel.

He said: “Instead of waiting to send 20 personnel abroad, you can send 10 that can be accommodated within available funds rather than jettisoning crucial professional training abroad that will impact their output to the nation.

“The Executive Secretary and his team should come up with a strategic plan for sending personnel on training outside the country while continuing to patronise local training available in the country. We need to send some of our personnel outside Nigeria to get highly sophisticated training that would enable them to tackle crimes in the country.”

The minister recalled the problem of Boko Haram that started in Borno State in 2009 before spreading to Yobe State in 2011, when he was the governor, noting that it was not easy then despite the collaboration of both policemen and the military and the need to get well-trained personnel that will deal decisively with terrorists and kidnappers.

In her contributions, the Minister of State, stated that in perfecting statecraft, international norms and best practices, will be deployed in training and retraining, operations will be standardised, infrastructure will be updated, and work tools will be developed to strengthen the professionalism of security personnel.

“It has to be standardised and tailored towards what will work for the police ecosystem and our population. It should not be about procurement alone but strategy planning that will focus on professionalism, patriotism, and transparency because our sector is one of the priority plans of Mr. President and it is critical to the National security of the country,” Hajia Sulaiman-Ibrahim said.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of NPTF pointed out that all the training programmes have been successfully executed and for the Construction and Rehabilitation of Police Offices and Barracks, one hundred and eight (109) projects have been completed (100%), while thirty (30) projects are near completion (70 – 90%), and twenty-eight (28) projects are still on-going (01 – 69%)

He enumerated the challenges of his organisation concerning the delay in the take-off of the NPTF activities from June 2019 to May 2020; the delay in annual budget approval for the Fund; some inconsistencies in the NPTF Act, 2019, such as the commencement date; problems of 0.005% levy and its collection from companies in Nigeria, among others.