by Azeez Adeniyi

The Federal Government has approved the recruitment of 10,000 police officers every year.

Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris disclosed this during the monthly IG conference with senior police officers on Wednesday at the Force headquarters, Abuja.

He said the recruitment was to ensure the numerical capacity of the Force was corrected.

Idris said it was necessary to strengthen the Police Force in its bid to combat crime.

He also called for better funding for the police.

He said, “We can succeed in community policing when we address the ratio of one policeman to 400 citizens. Recruitment of rank and file had been stopped and there is no where you can have an effective police if you don’t have enough policemen to police the population and that is one of the areas we are addressing now.

“This administration has come up with the recruitment of 10,000 police officers and we are going to ensure, because the President has given us approval, every year we are going to address this 10,000 policemen and these strategic issues we need to address to be able to tackle effectively the efficiency of the Nigeria Police Force.”

The IG also said the police has arrested suspects involved in major kidnappings in the country.

“It (kidnapping) is becoming a worrisome situation and that is why we are now trying to mobilize all sectors of the community so that we can sit down and address this  issue of kidnapping. It goes beyond the issue of police, it has gone beyond the role of community leaders, it has gone to the level of the roles of religious leaders, even to the kind of schools we leave our children,” Idris asserted.

Azeez