BRIEF REMARKS BY IGP SOLOMON E. ARASE, FDC, NPM, AT THE INAUGURAL INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE’S ANNUAL STRATEGIC POLICE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCEHELD AT TRANSCORP HILTON HOTEL, ABUJA (FRI. 22ND – SAT.
BRIEF REMARKS BY IGP SOLOMON E. ARASE, fdc, NPM, AT THE INAUGURAL INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE’S ANNUAL STRATEGIC POLICE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCEHELD AT TRANSCORP HILTON HOTEL, ABUJA (FRI. 22ND – SAT. 23RD APRIL, 2016)
Protocols
It is with a deep sense of professional fulfilmentthat I welcome this rich cream of police managers and our esteem guests to this landmark inaugural Annual Inspector General of Police’s Strategic Leadership Conference.
- The concept of today’s event was borne out of the acknowledgement of the fact that no organization develops beyond the capacity of its human asset, and the quality of any agency is best measured by the quality of the crop of the strategic managers of such an agency. 3. Beyond these, ladies and gentlemen, for a security world in which crime is increasingly driven by technology and globalization, and in a public space where criminals are increasingly ingenious, dynamic and complex, it is only natural for the Nigeria Police Force to strengthen its leadership competency with a view to staying ahead of these criminal dynamics.
- Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, my experience in service has shown that there is a chronic manpower gap at the strategic policing level in Nigeria. This is particularly noticeable within the ranks of Assistant Commissioner of Police to Commissioner of Police.
- This institutional challenge is compounded by the fact that there are limited training opportunities for Officers of this cadre granted their large number. Yet, the future leadership of the Force naturally evolves from this cadre of Officers. In consequence, the ability of the Nigeria Police to provide knowledge-based leadership needed to dissect and professionally manage current and emerging crimes has over the years, remained limited.
- It has therefore, become expedient to initiate sustainable training and capacity building actions aimed at bridging this deep manpower competency gap with a view to strengthening the quality of strategic Police leadership and preparing the Force for future challenges that criminals may pose to our beloved nation. This initiative is vital to the long term manpower reform vision aimed at restoring Police primacy in Nigeria.
- In furtherance to this, the Force is collaborating with local and international policing actors/experts to institute a training intervention and capacity building scheme on an annual basis which will target this cadre of strategic Police leaders. As a mid-term step, we have, in collaboration with the Rule of Law component of the Office of the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Professor Todd Foglesong of the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, Canada introduced a training scheme where twenty-five (25) Assistant Commissioners of Police were trained some weeks ago.
- The second phase of this initiative held from Tuesday, 19th April, 2016 to Thursday, 21st April, 2016 in the course of which another batch of twenty-five (25) Officers of the cadres of Commissioners of Police, DeputyCommissioners of Police and Assistant Commissioners of Police were trained on Strategic Police Management.
- My genuine commitment towards institutionalizingthis initiative, informed my resolveto emplace the “Inspector-General of Police’s Annual Strategic ManagementConference”, which is the object of our gathering today. Beyond drawing on the experiences of strategic police managers across the world, it remains my conviction that the concept of an annual leadership conference of this nature will galvanise national attention to the need to continually invest in ventures that will sharpen the managerial skills of strategic police managers.
- This will act as a conscious approach towards positioning the Police to attain its mandate within the internal security framework of the country. It will also act as a national platform for the dissection of current policing challenges with a view to engaging local and international professionals towards developing new approaches in addressing those identified challenges.
- It is in cognisanze of these that the theme of this inaugural Lecture Series was crafted as “Custodial Violence and Strategic Police Management”. This theme recognizes that issues touching on custodial violence remain a burning police discourse in Nigeria. The theme was therefore carefully chosen to explore the challenge of custodial violence in the Nigerian Policing landscape, while also exposing police managers to current thoughts on police management in relation to the application of best global practices to addressing institutional challenges militati