Nigeria Police Needs N245 Billion To Alleviate Shortage Of Patrol Vans

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. However, 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.”

Each of the 1,537 police divisional headquarters would require the acquisition of approximately 6,148 vehicles to meet the allocation of four patrol vehicles per divisional headquarters.

As of Thursday, The PUNCH’s investigation revealed that the minimum cost of a new Toyota Hilux V6 is N40 million.

The price of the brand-new Toyota Hilux V6, as disclosed by some unnamed auto dealers in phone interviews with our correspondent, stands at N40 million.

To procure the 6,148 vehicles needed by the police, considering the N40 million rate per vehicle, a total of N245,920,000,000 would be required.

In his presentation to the National Assembly, the Inspector General emphasized the imperative for increased funding to the police force.

“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 said.

During an interview with The PUNCH on Tuesday, a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Adedayo Adeoye, called President Bola Tinubu to declare a state of emergency lasting at least six months to eliminate insecurity.

Additionally, the former police chief appealed to the Federal Government to substantially increase funding for the Nigeria Police Force and to withdraw police officers from VIP escort duties. This move aims to enhance the NPF’s workforce and address the prevailing security challenges.

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.”