10, 000 Police recruitment: Officers will be trained with stun guns-Arase.

 10, 000 Police recruitment: Officers will be trained with stun guns-Arase.

Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase has said that the 10,000 officers that will be recruited into the Nigeria Police Force will be trained with stun guns and modern policing methods encompassing technology.

Arase noted that stun guns are now the new best practice methodology and are becoming internationally prevalent as they aid in the reduction of casualties associated with misuse of firearms.

Speaking at the end of a two day seminar on ‘Strategic Policing’ in Abuja, the IGP explained that Police training colleges across the country are equipped to accommodate the officers that will be recruited noting that for effective training, the recruits will be trained across the six geo-political zones in the country.

Assuring that the recruitment process will be transparent, the IGP explained that most of the applicants will be disqualified because of their age, height .

Arase also allayed fears that the menace of herdsmen will degenerate into Boko Haram insurgence.

This was disclosed in Abuja yesterday during a chat with Journalists. According to him: “we want to migrate from the use of firearms in patrols in main cities and we have ordered for stun guns.

“The people that will be recruited will be mostly with stun guns because that is what is prevalent internationally and stun guns are very effective because they can incapacitate temporarily without killing.

On the amount that will be spent to acquire non-lethal arms, he said: “I cannot put a cost to it because they are not manufactured in Nigeria and you cannot pick them up on the shelve. So, it takes time and it is also susceptible to fluctuation in foreign currency.

Speaking on the training facilities and the recruitment process, he said: “The 10,000 police officers will not be trained in one place. We have training schools scattered around and we are going to group them into the six geo-political zones.

“The training schools in those areas  particular zone will  cater for the people in that zone and by doing that, I think we have been able to intervene as it concerns training and the intervention is still ongoing but I think the facilities there are good enough to welcome them into school.

“The 10,000 that will be recruited are segmented. Some are going to be officers and it is clear that officers cannot train with recruits. We should also know that some are going to be medical doctors, some are going to be engineers while some are going to be pilots. So, there are different categories of officers and so, they will not be   plunged together but the bulk of them are going to be constables because we have not recruited for the past five years.

On the criteria and ensuring a transparent process, he said: “their age, educational qualification, height will be used and we also have to be sure that where they claimed they are from is true.

He said: “some of those people uploading their credentials on the website now are 30 to 34 and they are too old. We will not take all those ones. They must adhere to the criteria given.

“Do not be bothered with over 700,000 that have applied, a lot of them will be knocked out when the system starts the sorting process and there will also be exams which will be done at state level.

Commenting on the activities of herdsmen, the IGP allayed fears of that they will grow to become Boko Haram insurgence.

According to him: “I have repeatedly said that what is happening has to be placed against the background of what is happening in African sub-region. When you look at the period when these things started happening and the crisis with migrants and then the flow of arms across our borders, then you will understand what is happening.

“We have been living with our own indigenous herdsmen for many years, so why is it now that there are crisis in Mali, Libya, Chad and the proliferation of firearms that the herdsmen are  becoming more prevalent in the system.

He added: “We have to look at it against that background and maybe they have indigenous collaborators but we will not allow them and it will not degenerate into Boko Haram. We will continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up”.

END