The Inspector General of Police(IGP) Olatunji Disu has said that lapses in policing and public complaints against officers are largely linked to gaps in education and training within the force.
Speaking when he led his team on a visit to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) in Abuja on Thursday, the IGP said the police cannot effectively carry out their mandate without a stronger educational foundation for officers.
“We value education. If you notice any lapses in what we do, what the police do, all the complaints you have against the police boils down to education,” he said.
He explained that the Nigerian Police Force is working to upgrade the kind of education given to officers, noting that modern policing requires specialized knowledge and skills beyond traditional training.
According to him, the force is focusing on areas such as forensic science, criminology, data analytics, artificial intelligence and cyber security to improve professionalism and effectiveness.
“You cannot do good policing without having wonderful forensic officers and wonderful forensic departments to assist you to do your job. We need to have specialists, we need to have criminologists,” he said.
The IGP stressed that policing has moved beyond stereotypes and guesswork, and must now be driven by research and data.
He cited the example of how officers were once asked to identify criminals from photographs based on appearance, and how the exercise revealed the danger of profiling people wrongly.
“By the time they revealed the identity of these people to us, all of them, with their different faces, with their scars and coat, were doctors, medical doctors, scientists, and everything. So we need education to be able to bypass this. Policing has gone beyond this. We want to be scientific,” he said.
He added that the force is already training officers in the use of drones for operations, artificial intelligence for crime prediction, and data analytics to anticipate crime trends such as the rise in offences during the ember months.
The IGP said the establishment of the new Nigeria Police Academy in Erinja, Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State represents a major milestone in the reform and modernization agenda of the force.
He appealed for sustained support from TETFUND in building academic infrastructure, lecture theatres, laboratories, ICT facilities, libraries and staff development programmes to ensure the academy takes off on a solid foundation.
Responding, the Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Arc. Sonny Echono pledged the Fund’s support in the provision of funds for Police Academy’s takeoff and development.
He said the decision was in line with President Bola Tinubu’s directive to modernize the Nigerian Police and strengthen its capacity through education and training.
He added that a joint inspection and evaluation of the needs for the campus would be carried out next week with the police team.
The TETFUND boss urged the IGP to ensure the new campus attains full university status before the end of his tenure, noting that this would make it a self-sustaining institution eligible for annual direct disbursements.
