Nigeria Police Can Combat Boko Haram - Senator

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Senate Committee Chairman on Police Affairs, Senator Paulius Igwe-Nwagu, according to Huhuonline.com / sources has discredited claims that the Nigeria Police cannot curtail the spate of insecurity as a result of the inglorious activities of the Islamic Boko Haram

 sect in the country.
Senator Paulius Igwe-Nwagu, representing Ebonyi Central Senatorial District at the National Assembly, who said the on-going police reforms by the federal government through the Ministry of Police Affairs, would become effective since some of the Boko Haram sect members were already being arrested and tried at different levels of authority.

He also stated that as part of the police reform, the Ministry of Police Affairs had procured and distributed large number of vehicles and Amoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), with the aim of tackling operational difficulties of the police force. He said the existing Police Act was which was first enacted in 1943 and amended in 1968 was now out-dated and can no longer meet contemporary security challenges facing the nation.

He noted that the National Assembly was currently working on the process of repealing the Act establishing the Nigeria Police Force with a view to replacing it with a new Act that would establish the Nigeria Police Service noting that his Committee would soon go for public hearing to enable Nigerians make input before the final passage.

'As I'm talking with you now, the Act is before us. We want to repeal the Act and re-enact the Police Act. This will bring to focus, the security challenges and the growing situation in the country, knowing fully that the Act was a brain child of the colonial masters and they made it to suit them.

'There is no country in the world that answers police force except Nigeria, because the Act was the product of colonial masters. They made it that time to protect themselves and not to protect the masses.

'Constitutionally, we will make amendments on the provisions of the constitution; Section 140 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. We will make sure that the Act is in line with the constitutional provisions where there will be no conflict.

'That is to say, we are now introducing Nigerian Police Service, not Nigerian Police Force this time around', he concluded.