‘Police need N245bn to address patrol vans shortage’

The Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has said each of the 1,537 divisional police headquarters across the country needs at least four patrol vehicles.

The IG, who appeared on Tuesday before the House of Representatives, identified poor funding and inadequate manpower as some of the challenges facing the Nigeria Police Force.

Egbetokun said, “The police also find themselves operating in a very difficult environment. The manpower in the police today is grossly inadequate. Even the criminals know that. The United Nations ratio of 1 to 400 is not attainable in Nigeria as of today. Because the ratio in Nigeria is one to 1,000, which suggests that we have to double the manpower.

“We have 1,537 police divisional headquarters across 774 local government areas. But getting operational vehicles for the divisions is difficult. Each of these divisions requires at least four functional patrol vehicles. But we have divisions which don’t have any patrol vehicles as of today.”

For each of the 1,537 police divisional headquarters to get four patrol vehicles, it means the police would need to acquire about 6,148 vehicles.

A brand new Toyota Hilux V6 costs at least N40m.

Some auto dealers, who did not want their name in print, quoted the price in phone interviews with our correspondent.

For the police to get  6,148 vehicles at the rate of N40m, about  N245,920,000,000 will be needed.

During his presentation at the National Assembly, the IG harped on the need for more funding to the police.

“No agency can perform with limited resources available to it. In the last five months, we have made a lot of arrests. We have made a lot of recovery of illicit weapons. Some of these suspects are undergoing prosecution as we speak. But no amount of arrests that we make will solve our security problem. Today, we make arrests of 100, and tomorrow 200 criminals are coming out,” he saod.

In an interview with The PUNCH on Tuesday, a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Adedayo Adeoye, urged President Bola Tinubu to declare a state of emergency for at least a duration of six months to eradicate insecurity.

The retired police chief also urged the Federal Government to ultimately fund the Nigeria Police Force and withdraw police officers from VIP escort duties to improve the manpower of the NPF.

Adeoye said, “The IGP was right about the issue of funding and manpower, and I commend him for taking the right step to withdraw police officers from VIP duties. If this can be done, it will improve the manpower of the NPF.

“Concerning funding, I might not know about other security agencies, but the police don’t get up to half of the money usually budgeted for the NPF. This is part of why police stations don’t have money to fuel patrol vehicles, amongst other things. The police need adequate funding. The security agencies need more sophisticated weapons and intelligence-gathering equipment to combat insecurity.”