‘Police personnel require decent pay to work decently’

Only saints could be expected to work as police personnel and abstain from acts of corruption if police personnel continue to be poorly paid and deprived of better working conditions, a police support group leader has said at a function involving the police in Abuja.

Alhaji Abubakar Ali, the Coordinator of Eminent Persons Forum, an initiative launched last year to help with community crime fighting, said at the opening ceremony of a workshop on Speaking for the Nigerian Police organized for police public relations officers from across the country by an NGO, Cleen Foundation, that Nigeria Police personnel were working hard considering that they were poorly paid and illequipped.

“If we want our policemen and women to do better and be free of corruption, we should pay them well and give them the tools for the high performance that we seek from them,” Ali said.

The Executive Director of Cleen Foundation, Dr Benson Olugbuo, said the foundation was collaborating well with the police at promoting public safety, security and access to justice in partnership with government, civil society and the private sector.

He said the foundation organized the Stakeholders Forum on Speaking for the Police and subsequent two-day training for force PROs to increase the force’s effectiveness at communications and public relations.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Idris Ibrahim Idris Kpotum who was represented on the occasion by the Deputy IGP Operations Joshua Kabila, said the police force was always ready to collaborate with institutions interested in ways to improve the lot of the police.