Yet Another Mismanaged Police Funds

By now, the rank and file of the police Force must be thoroughly embarrassed by the spate of mismanaged Police Funds currently being investigated and which has become a major topic of discussion in the public. This is coming at a time when the Police Force is increasingly finding it difficult to deal with the large scale armed robbery in the country with its men being felled daily by better equipped criminals due to lack of modern sophisticated weaponry, low morale, poor logistics and welfare.
First, it was the scandalous revelation over Kenny Martins-led police equipment Funds in which fifty billion naira were collected from several stakeholders across the country supposedly to help upgrade the capacity of the Police force only to be allegedly expended frivolously and the entire project converted to the personal NGO of some of the funds managers who have arrogantly ignored the public clamour to account.
Even the Presidency and the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) until recently, were non-challant about the scandal. It took the grace of his eminence, Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Saad Abubakar for the EFCC to begin investigation following his resignation as Chairman of the board of trustee just as he called for immediate probe. And while the nation was trying to cope with that, came the news of invitation of the immediate past inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over the N557 million grant by Bayelsa State Government for the purchase of arms and ammunition for the police. Mr. Ehindero was alleged to have failed to inform the presidency immediately the money was paid but instead put the fund in fixed deposit accounts in two banks, the interest of which, it was alleged, he converted to personal use.
The former IG is not alone. The former Police Affairs Minister, Mr. Brodericks Bozimo is also being quizzed for allegedly deducting 27 million naira of the money to cover his medical expenses abroad.
All these allegations are still being probed by the relevant agencies at the moment. However, our immediate concern is the contemptuous, corrupt, selfish and incompetent manner in which the immediate bastion of public security has been managed over the years. If government exists first to protect security of lives and property and the institution entrusted with that task is so mismanaged and undignifyingly treated by its custodian, the government may as well pack and go home and then tell Nigerians to elect another. Given the way the police is currently being run, it will not be long before the public loses confidence in the government itself. Following the public disgrace and trial of former Inspector General Tafa Balogun not too long ago, who would have thought that the Police hierarchy and its allied organizations can still be alleged to be toying with Police funds at a time when innocent and poor policemen on the fields who are so starved of the needed money for their tooling and welfare and up-keep are being killed everyday by men of the underworld due to low capacity. Yet funds meant for them are being allegedly diverted for personal use by the Police bosses at the top. This is nothing but an act of treachery and sabotage, equivalent to treason under the security personnel rules.
We condemn the initial apathy shown by the presidency and the EFCC. Now that they have decided to look into the issues, the incidents must be thoroughly investigated and culprits brought to book. It is gratifying that the EFCC has arrested some accused persons on this matter. We caution on the witch-hunt of anybody just as nothing must be swept under the carpet as those being quizzed are still presumed innocent. Perhaps it is high time President Umar Yar’Adua looked at a more efficient and transparent way of disbursing funds to police commands across the country in view of the evidently corrupt central command system in Abuja headquarters which has, overtime, demoralized the force and promoted more inefficiency.