About 75 percent of operational budgetary releases to the Nigeria Police Force have been stolen, according, according to the Abuja-based NGO, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).

Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of HURIWA, made the allegation in an interview with News Express.

Speaking against the background of calls in some quarters for a probe of the management of the country’s police colleges following the shocking rot at Police College Lagos as exposed last week by a TV documentary, Onwubiko said: “HURIWA is not in support of a piecemeal or fire-brigade approach to redressing the comprehensive rot in the Nigeria Police Force as an institution. The rot is so extensive in the Nigeria Police Force that surgical overhaul is required by first of all pruning all the bad eggs starting with instituting a strong independent judicial panel of inquiry to be led by a serving Supreme Court of Nigeria’s Justice of sound character to probe the administration of funds released to the Nigeria Police Force since 1999 because it is our firm belief and conviction that nearly 75% of operational budgetary releases to the Nigeria Police Force have been stolen.”

He demanded that “the judicial commission of inquiry on the Nigeria Police Force from 1999 till date should uncover all those who stole these funds, and make wide ranging recommendations on how to retrieve these funds and sanction these thieves. Secondly, the Nigerian Police Force must set up a data base to comprehensively take records of all the criminal records of their members; verify all the claims and documents tendered at the point of recruitment/enlistment to fish out the fake operatives for subsequent weeding out after a national rehabilitation program and total disarmament to ensure that arms and ammunitions meant for the Nigeria Police Force are not stolen by these bad eggs to be shown the way out of the Nigeria Police Force. The next stage is for the National Assembly constitutional amendment committee to consider establishing state and local police for effective and efficient law enforcement because the current policing structure is unworkable. All those who stole police money must be named and shamed and sanctioned by the competent courts of law for economic sabotage.”

HURIWA dismissed last Friday’s visit by President Goodluck Jonathan to the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos – a day after the Channels TV documentary exposed the deplorable living condition of the students – as “cosmetic and artificial because it is inconceivable that President Jonathan is unaware of the rot in the Nigeria Police Force since he entered public service from the local, state up until now that he is the executive President of Nigeria and so it is laughable that it took only the documentary by Channels TV for the sitting President to embark on media showmanship that he called unscheduled visit to police college in Ikeja, Lagos.”

The group demanded that “Government must go beyond window dressing and pragmatically implement holistic and fundamental measures to redress this dysfunctional state of the Nigeria Police Force.”

•Photo: Inspector General of Police, MD Abubakar.