Jos police college: A portrait of decay, abandoned projects
From Hir Joseph, Jos
There was a strong stench of urine and excreta from the two toilets that oozes into the Louis Edet Hall, badly affecting course participants, all of them senior officers from the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and above. At the gate, an officer in plain cloths enquired if the guest lecturer of the day had arrived. He is one of the wealthy officers, said to be a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) who lodged in hotels to run away from the the decaying hostels. This is the reality of utter decay at the Police Staff College (PSC), Bukuru, near Jos in Plateau State.
A class in Advanced Detection was going on when our correspondent arrived the premises of the college, an institution established in 1973 for the training of officers of the police. The auditorium was filled to capacity with the course participants from the rank of ASP and above.
The male instructor was a guest lecturer. A peep into the hall from the rear revealed how he delivered his lecture with difficulty. He shouted to be heard. An inquiry later revealed that the institution last used a public address system about seven years ago.
There was no light either, and the course attendants had to raise documents they had in their hands, above the desk level to read, using the light rays from outside, Daily Trust on Sunday observed. Electrical fittings like fans and other installations have long given way to decay, stretching several decades.
It was learnt that classes are often interrupted during the rainy season as a result of darkness and breeze, often accompanied by blurred vision and impaired hearing.
A concerned course participant who did not want his name published said, “There is no light, no public address system. So what do you expect? Classes have to be shifted like public universities do for their students. This is the condition under which we have classes.”
The auditorium, including the toilets attached to it for both instructors and course participants, are in a very bad state. The main doorway of the auditorium leads through these toilets, meant for The two urine basins in the male toilet have long lost their colours, having been neglected for decades. The toilets are terrible. It was observed that due to the bad condition of the toilet facilities, layers of decomposing excreta and decaying urine spill over the WC (toilet seats) until cleaners have access to the alternative water supply scheme to flush the mess. The water tanks on the toilet seats have broken up; hence the floor is in a perpetual mess men and women respectively. There is no running water; and according to our findings, this has been the case for over a decade. Sometimes participants are lucky to see water in a plastic container of about 50 litres, arranged through alternative means.
The two urine basins in the male toilet have long lost their colours, having been neglected for decades. The toilets are terrible. It was observed that due to the bad condition of the toilet facilities, layers of decomposing excreta and decaying urine spill over the WC (toilet seats) until cleaners have access to the alternative water supply scheme to flush the mess. The water tanks on the toilet seats have broken up; hence the floor is in a perpetual mess.
The situation is so terrible that anyone who walks into the toilets always drags the mess to the auditorium. The breeze that blows into the hall through the main door is contaminated.
“We attend classes under terrible conditions, and that is not good for our health,” a course attendant who did not want to be named, said.
The hostels are not better either, as they are in serious decay. “What you find here is not different from the student hostels in some public universities. My son, who is a university student visited, and I was ashamed to take him to my hostel apartment. We discussed outside, and I saw him off. Many of my hostel mates won’t stay because they have alternative arrangements. Some pay to lodge in nearby hotels while others stay with relatives or friends,” he said.
All the hostels for male course attendants
are located along Mike Okiro Road, some 200 metres to the administrative block, which also hosts the auditorium and other facilities. There are three blocks of hostels: one of which is a twin bungalow of classroom-styled building; and the other, two-storey buildings, one of which has been neglected and exposed to decay.
The two surviving hostels are mere structures with roofs; they are no decent accommodation. From a distance, a visitor’s attention is drawn to the assembly of newspapers and other papers gummed on the glasses to serve as curtains on the windows. According to course attendants, this has become necessary because Jos has a very cold weather and there are no curtains on the windows. In this college, power supply is not a guarantee to enable them boil water to bath.
“Attending a course here is punishment,” a man in mufti told our correspondent. Abandoned projects everywhere From the hostel area to other parts of the college, there are uncompleted projects everywhere. Between Mike Okiro Road and another part of the school premises, our correspondent counted four projects initiated for contract. At the other side of the main road into the college, a cluster of projects to erect massive blocks of storey buildings compete for attention.
The projects have all been abandoned some of them close to completion. And there are no signposts to describe the projects, the year of the award of contracts, contractors, or clients. It was observed that only one of these abandoned projects has a signpost that may soon collapse. The signpost indicates that the project is for the construction of a hostel, initiated by the Ministry of Police Affairs and awarded to Multibase International Nigeria Limited. There is no address, no telephone contacts and no date of contract award.
‘Prehistoric’ library, course facilities
At the central planning and training unit, the look of the building from outside speaks volume of what is to be expected inside. This unit has suffered from decades of decay.
The college library, located at the administrative block, reminds a visitor of a prehistoric learning facility. The reading desks are made of old wooden plywood that has long faded.
When Daily Trust on Sunday visited on two occasions, not even a single course participant was seen at the library. The inner chamber of the library hosts various shelves containing a large number of books. The shelves have modern designs, but the books are archaic. According to a retired police officer who attended a course in the college a year ago, the books in the library have no relevance to modern policing.
“The books have no relevance to modern policing. They are prehistoric. I attended various courses there but had no need of entering that library,” the retired officer said.
Speaking when he was posted to the college as a commandant, the controversial police officer, Joseph Mbu, now retired, told newsmen that he was not serving a punishment as widely rumoured. It was said that to post an officer to the institution was a form of punishment.
Within a few months in the institution, Mbu told journalists that the extent of rot there was very high.
“Nigerians want an improved police force in line with the change mantra, but the institutions that train the personnel are in a state of utter decay. There is decay, there is neglect. What we have on ground is not conducive for the reform programme we all yearn for,” he said.
He further disclosed that course participants were not fed by the college, a situation that compelled them to go outside frequently.
“There is no need for course participants here to feed themselves. Government should feed them to make them feel cared for. That will, in turn, ginger them to make more sacrifices for the nation,” Mbu said, adding that as a result of decay, police training institutions in the country could not offer sound training.
He lamented a situation where contracts were awarded for projects but later abandoned. He advocated the setting up of a committee to take stock of police training institutions, with a view to turning them around.
Daily Trust on Sunday further observed that the college has no website; hence course participants find it difficult to obtain basic information.
When contacted on the state of decay in the college, Mbu’s successor, Dorothy Gimba, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), told our correspondent on phone that course participants had no right to speak to the media. She said they were required to lodge formal complaints about their condition instead of talking to the press. Mrs. Gimba did not deny the rot in the college, nor the absence of feeding for course participants.