Over 200,000 policemen assigned to politicians – Ex-IGP

A former Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Solomon Arase, has said that over 200,000 police officers are attached to political elites in the country.

Arase who faulted the practice described it as “policing the elites against policing security spaces.”

He lamented that the police were not policing the security space in Nigeria.

Speaking at the second edition of the national dialogue series of the Political Leadership and Training Institute (POLA), championed by former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital, yesterday he said: “We have about 400,000 police personnel in Nigeria, and 200,000 of those officers are with the political elites.

“What we are doing in this country is that we are policing the elites, we are not policing security spaces, and this is an issue we have to look into.”

He blamed the challenges facing the police to lack of political will to implement past reports on how to reform the security outfit.