By Aare Afe Babalola, SAN
This week, more emphasis will be placed on the incidence of poor remuneration and lack of proper equipment confronting the Nigeria police which, no doubt, has negatively impacted its crime-fighting capability and generally occasioned a near-nil reposition of public confidence in the ability of the police to effectively perform their statutory duties which, as I had earlier highlighted, are primarily crime detection and prevention. As the popular saying goes, it is only a bad workman that quarrels with his tools. What then happens if there even exists no tools for a workman to function? Will he, in that context, be considered bad? Such, indeed, is the case of the average officer in the Nigeria Police Force who is ill-equipped, poorly remunerated and, therefore, sparsely motivated to effectively perform his duties.
A police officer in the United States is equipped with the following: a utility belt (or duty belt) which generally contains a radio, knife, taser, mace, baton, handgun, flashlight and handcuffs. In addition, his equipment also includes body cameras, digital license plate readers, facial recognition software, mobile fingerprint reading consoles and in-vehicle computers. Other specialised equipment are ballistic helmets, tactical vests, air gas mask, assorted weapons, grenades, white smoke, tactical air support, riot shields, infrared equipment, underwater/dive unit facilities, mechanical robots, among others.
These equipment offer better crime detection opportunities while protecting the police officers in the performance of their duties; they afford officers quicker ways to be alerted to the commission of a crime, provide easy access to criminal records, and even help checkmate potential excesses of police officers through a body camera which records all the activities of such officers. The Nigerian situation Generally, in a modern society, the primary aim of working is to earn a living. This is measured in monetary terms either by way of wages, salary, proceeds of sale, remuneration, etc. It is not really the nomenclature that matters but the substance – money. What our police officers earn in Nigeria as salaries are nothing short of stipends. The salaries and emoluments of policemen in Nigeria are embarrassingly poor. It is highly discouraging. This singular factor, if the truth must be told, has robbed Nigeria of finest brains who would have easily opted for policing had the salaries been made attractive. Perhaps the abysmal remuneration picture of the Nigeria Police is best painted in a paper presented by the former Inspector-General of Police; Mr. M.A.K. Smith titled “A Retreat”.
He submitted, quite frighteningly thus:”It is now a matter of common knowledge the need for an upward review of police salaries. Not minding the recent general increase in salaries of public officers, it stands clear that the police salary still ranks low at the bottom of the national wage”. The salary of an average constable is almost conterminous with the national wage. A situation which makes a police constable rank with cleaners and stewards in the ministries. What this means is that the qualifications and status of an average policeman are not adequately compensated by his pay. This is in contradistinction to developments all over the world, where the police pay is one of the highest in those countries. However, in Nigeria, the least ranked police officer (a police recruit) earns a monthly salary of N9, 019 while the highest-ranked (the Inspector-General of Police) earns a salary of N711, 498 per month. In the United States of America as at April 2017, a table of the 100 highest paying cities or localities showed that the average annual salary in the highest rank city of San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California was $118,920. In Napa, California, which was ranked second it was $112,840, while in Nassau-Suffolk, New York it was $111,770. At the current exchange rates of N381 to the dollar, this translates to N45, 308,520, N42, 992,040 and N42, 584,370, respectively. In the least-ranked cities of Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Massachusetts, Ithaca, New York and Hawaii-Maui-Kauai nonmetropolitan area, Hawaii, the average salaries were $67,230, $66,980 and $66,780, respectively. In addition to these, police officers enjoy several benefits which include flexible work schedule, employment assistance programmes, life insurance, bereavement leave, tuition reimbursement, among others.
To say those night guards and drivers in private establishments earn far more than a Police Sergeant in Nigeria should be a thing of serious concern to every sane Nigerian. Under the present discouraging atmosphere, there is no way Nigeria can have a fully committed and highly efficient policing. What is more, virtually all these poorly paid policemen have wives, children, dependants and aged parents, the feeding responsibility of which is heavily on their shoulders. And some policemen even have the additional task of funding the education of their younger brothers and sisters! The sad aspect of it all is that our policemen work under a very dangerous, unconducive and thoroughly hostile environment as opposed to their foreign counterparts who have everything modern at their disposal and under a beautiful, encouraging atmosphere within which they operate – and with fantastic salary to show for it. Again, in the United States of America, apart from the general earnings of the police, the Federal law provides for special salary rates for the benefit of federal employees who serve in law enforcement.
In addition, the Federal Special Agents and Inspectors receive what is known as “Law Enforcement Availability Pay, LEAP” or “Administratively Uncontrolled Overtime, AUO”, which is equal to 25% of the agent’s grade and step mainly awarded because of the large amount of overtime that these agents are expected to work. Compared with what operates in Nigeria, there is no doubting the fact that the above represents very tempting, mouth-watering financial incentives. Therefore, there exists the need for an urgent reform in the Nigeria Police Force to include the provision of adequate equipment and proper remunerations for officers. Surely, this will constitute a step in the right direction towards restoring public confidence in the police as the incidences of bribery will most likely be curtailed and Nigeria will enjoy the benefits of a well-equipped, adequately-trained, corruption-free and highly motivated police force.
To be concluded…