Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday asked for the reassignment of the 150,000 policemen guarding private citizens to core police duties, saying from all indications, the country is facing security emergencies and the security forces are overstretched.
He insisted that it is in the light of these that disclosure by the chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Mike Okiro that over 150,000 policemen are guarding private. Citizens and "big men" is scandalous.
Atiku in a statement by his media adviser, Mr. Paul Ibe, said to have welcomed the reported new policy of the police authorities in reassigning these 150,000 policemen from guarding VIPs to regular police duties especially as it relates to the mucus needed protection of schools in the Northeast and other troubled zones.
According to him, "we do not have enough military and paramilitary forces to provide security for the peace loving people of Nigeria which is why the recent Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State kidnapping occurred. Their school was left unguarded."
Asked what he would do different to prevent abduction like Dapchi, if he were in charge, Atiku posited that "recently, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Chief Mike Okiro, revealed that 150,000 policemen are guarding various elites and those we know as ‘big men’. If I had my way, I would have recalled all of those 150,000 policemen who are not performing core police duties and send them to provide security for every school in the North-East region.
"That to me would be a better use of their time and services. We already know that Boko Haram has an agenda to cripple Western education in Nigeria. So how could we have left those schools unguarded? Why should the police be guarding VIPs who can afford personal guards and leave vulnerable girls unguarded? We are spending billions of Naira trying to encourage girls to go to school only to allow them be abducted by terrorists."
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