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| NEWS > 04 December 2007 |
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Ethics: A struggle for all of
By BILL HENDRICK
ATLANTA — The tab at a nice restaurant shows a glaring $40 error in your favor. A friend says to keep quiet. Would you tell the waiter?
Or suppose you peek into your daughter's bedroom and see she's obtained a new purse on a "five-finger discount." Should you make her return it? Or how 'bout that itty-bitty bounce your racquetball partner didn't see before you slammed the rubber spheroid to the back wall — giving you the point and the game? And, while we're at it, what about that last expense account? Come on now — did you really pay the cabbie $35 ... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Daily Sun - Apapa,Lagos,Nigeri
04 December 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Britain and the Nigeria Police
The recent decision of the Federal Government to enlist the help of Britain in the effort to reorganise the Nigeria Police signposts the despair and desperation of the Nigerian government to address the worsening security problem in the country. The Minister of Interior, Major-General Godwin Abe (rtd.), who intimated the nation of the resolution at the end of a meeting between top officials of his ministry and President Umar Musa Yar’Adua in Abuja, disclosed that the president requested for, and obtained assurance of help to re-organise the Nigeria Police from the British Prime Minister, Mr. Gordon Brown, at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), in Uganda.
He added that a committee comprising ex-police chiefs who had distinguished themselves in the service of the country will be set up soon to look at the white paper approved by the government for the new security initiatives and assist in the implementation of its contents.
At a first glance, we find the move to involve a foreign country in the restructuring of a sensitive organisation like our police, bizarre. We think it is odd, and a matter for regret, that 47 years after our country obtained independence and started managing our affairs as a sovereign nation, we still have to approach our former colonial master for help to reorganise our police and to empower it to carry out its assigned role of maintaining law and order in the country.
This request for help from Britain is an admission of our helplessness, and failure to make our police rise to the challenge of securing lives and property in the nation. It also, unfortunately, represents a vote of no confidence in the past leadership of the police to evolve a better police force that the nation desperately requires.
We are, however, hopeful that the new leadership of the police led by Mike Okiro will make a positive difference. What the new order requires is a chance to prove its mettle. While waiting for Okiro to bring about the much needed changes, we recognise the fact that Nigeria, certainly, can gain a lot from Britain in the area of logistics, ethics, forensic investigative methods and other aspects of policing to bring our police in tune with 21st century policing strategies.
Our current grave security situation calls for urgent remedial action and we consider the proposed reorganisation of the police long overdue.
However, there is the need for a careful handling of the offer of help from Britain. Beyond the dent to our image which our appeal to Britain for help constitutes, but which we must accept because Nigeria needs every help she can get to address the current security imbroglio, the nation must be mindful of the national security implications of opening our flanks to a foreign country. The police is a sensitive and strategic institution and we must resolve to get the benefits of this proposed partnership with Britain while not compromising our future security.
The agreement with Britain should also not be cosmetic, but undertaken with the intention to learn and adopt new strategies to achieve visible impact on our security situation. The partnership, which should be a cooperation of equals, should be based on the global tradition of foreign training of armed and security forces personnel.
This initiative, however, should not take away our responsibility to address other key problems that have been identified as militating against the performance of our police over the years. The problem of welfare of police personnel, training, provision of adequate arms and ammunition, vehicles and communication gadgets should be addressed in a holistic effort to reposition the force for effective service delivery. Beyond the grandiose idea of Britain re-organising our police, we need to seriously overhaul our facilities and increase both the human and fire power of the force.
We believe we can, on our own, re-organise our police, using our local experience and the peculiarities of our environment which are quite different from that of Britain, while benefiting from Britain in the area of sharing knowledge on issues like scientific investigations, data registries and other modern–day policing methods.
Since we have rightly decided not to shut our doors against whatever help we can get to restructure our police, we should determine the degree to which we need Britain in this reorganisation and demonstrate seriousness in benefiting from the partnership to achieve our ultimate objective of a more efficient force.
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