Nigerian Police To Reposition Colleges To Accommodate 31,000 Police Recruits Every Year-Police Service Commission

The Chairman of Police Service Commission, Musiliu Smith, says the commission has concluded plans to reposition police colleges nationwide to train 31,000 personnel per year.

Smith, a former Inspector-General of Police, made the disclosure when he led PSC board members on an inspection tour of Police College, Oji River, Enugu State on Tuesday.

Smith, represented by a Commissioner in the board, Austin Braimoh, said the total upgrade of police colleges had become necessary to meet the presidential mandate of training 31,000 police recruits yearly.

He said the police colleges in the country currently could only cater for the training needs of 15,000 police recruits as their training session lasted between nine and 12 months.

He said: “It has become necessary to train police personnel in conducive and decent environment to enable them have decent mentality to work and serve with dignity, courtesy and self-confidence.

“There is the need for more instructors as well as decent and more accommodation spaces for the instructors and students.

“The board wants to evolve a police that Nigerians can be proud of and associate with. That is why we want to start the reformation and change from the entry point, which is the police colleges.

“So, we are leaving no stone unturned as we start our assessment of police colleges with the Police College, Oji River.”

Smith noted that the board members anticipated to see worst scenario in this college but “we have seen that this place is better when compare with what had been said about other colleges”.

He, however, lauded the management of the institution for managing the scarce resources and personnel in running the college.

The chairman explained that the board would surely help the college to improve on its capacity to have an intake above 1,200 students for each session.

He said: “We saw some dilapidated buildings to be renovated and put to viable use, put ventilation and nets on them as well as making the clinic and its ambulance optimally functional.

“We also feel that urgently, we have to see how to fix the water reticulation as the college has a good and functional bore hole.

“There is also the need to continuously cut the grasses here to checkmate mosquitoes and reptiles.”