The government of Germany has offered to train officers of the Nigeria Police Force on ways to manage protesters without resorting to the use of guns.
In a visit to the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Musiliu Smith, a high-level delegation from Germany, led by retired German Inspector-General, Matthias Seeger, sought areas of collaboration on police training, reform, and other issues.
Other members of the delegation were the Deputy Director for West and Central Africa, German Federal Foreign Office, Mr Alexandre Callegaro; the Police Adviser at Stabilisation Unit, German Federal Foreign Office, Mr Sascha Weh; ex-CSP Gerd Baltes, retired SP Horst Schewe and former SP Wolfgang Nikolaus.
Seegar, in his remarks, explained that it would be an excellent start for the police if his team could train the new recruits into the Nigeria Police on best practices.
According to him, “I think the best is, for a start, if you want to build a house, you start with the basement. You focus on very few things, maybe two or three. In all the demonstrations we had in Europe, there are very few unique situations where police use their weapons; 99.9 per cent, no weapons.
“So, we offer to train for best practices. You have a great chance to train 30,000 young women and men to become policemen; you take the best. It’s a big chance for you now when you train young people. This the future of the police of Nigeria, so you train them well from the first moment.”
On his part, the PSC boss while justifying the need for officers to be armed stated that protesters in Europe were different from those in Nigeria.
“Let me draw your attention to one issue. When we have protests or demonstrations in this country, it would not be fair to compare it to those in Europe, and I have my reasons for this.
“For the last five, 10 years, what the men had to face in such situations, I think they have to be well prepared if they value their own lives. They need to be well-armed, well prepared so that if they tried all other means of dispersing them or making arrests, they may take some decisions or sometimes, some persons get hurt.
“But on a few occasions, they are forced to use weapons not only to save their lives but the lives of innocent citizens around the area. So, I don’t think they are totally handling demonstrations very well; there is a lot of room for improvement,” he added
