The Federal Government, on Thursday, reassured that despite the widespread insecurity in some parts the country, it would not be deterred from conducting next year’s general elections all over the nation.
Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Dingyadi, stated this while appearing on the 15th edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari score- card media briefing series in Abuja.
He said not only would the government ensure the exercise takes place in every part of the country, it would also be free, fair and credible.
Asked how the government would cope in the conduct of the polls with the wide- spread insecurity, which he had graphically showed in his presentation, he said:
“Yes. I have said it before, I want to repeat it now. This election is going to be conducted in all parts of the country and we want to assure Nigerians that it is going to be hitch-free, it’s going to be fair and it is going to be credible.
“What you see out there by these coward criminals will not deter us from conducting this election.”
Dingyadi spoke on his ministry’s efforts between August 2019 to 2022 to reposition the Nigeria Police Force to be “efficient, well-motivated, well equipped, people-friendly and improve its capacity to face modern day security challenges.”
He said the ministry has ensured the full implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) by all the agencies it supervises.
Dingyadi further explained that about 25,000 constables were trained in Police colleges across the country with many deployed to their local government of origin to aid in intelligence gathering techniques and law enforcement.
Similarly, he said the ministry supervised the recruitment of 30,000 police personnel being the third tranche of the 40,000 additional police constables approved by President Buhari to shore up the manpower of the Force.
According to him, the recruitment of the final 10,000 would soon be done by the relevant police stakeholders.
He stated that with the signing into law by the president of the Nigeria Police Trust Fund Bill, the reform of the force effectively took off, saying that the fund has led to the successful purchase of operational vehicles, arms and ammunition, bullet proof vests and helmets for Police operations.
Dingyadi remarked that the ministry’s intelligence-led po- licing paradigm had resulted in deployment of operational, intelligence, and ICT-based apparatus to stem the tide of crimes and criminalities in Ni- geria.
Some of these, he said, in- cluded the maximization of the Force Intelligence Bureau Intelligence Response Team (FIB- IRT) and the Special Tac- tical Squad (FIB- STS) and the ‘NPF Rescue Me,’ an Applica- tionwhich can be downloaded from playstore, is available on both android and ios, for emergency response at the tap of a button.
He added, that the NPF Crime and Incident Database Centre has been commissioned, to handle registration of valuable items, aiding recovery in the event of loss and providing a platform to confirm an item’s ownership.
According to him, the Inter- pol Cybercrime Reporting plat- form at incb.npf.gov.ng is avail- able 24/7 for the reportage of cybercrime related complaints including all offences provided for by the Cybercrime Act, 2015, including the production and distribution of child por- nography.
He said that the Interpol cybercrime unit is also empowered to mitigate possible cyber attacks like the 2019 attack on INEC cyber facilities.
“This unwholesome affront was mitigated by the NPF In- terpol cyber unit.
“This Unit has become very important fol- lowing the sophistication of cyber domain, being an invisible domain where attack can be launched on critical national infrastructure such as financial institutions, power, transpor- tation, energy, gas etc,” the minister stated.
Responding to a question on police officers’ grumbling over their unpaid six months salary arrears, Dingyadi noted that the outstanding amounts will soon be paid.
He said:
“Yes, we are aware of this and we are making efforts to ensure that we pay this salary as soon as possible.
“Even yesterday, I took up this matter with the Minister of Finance and she has assured me that she is aware that this money is there and they are going to pay it.
“I have given directive for Police Force to follow up this matter to ensure that these arrears are being paid.”
