Finally, The Nigeria Police Force Undergoes Major Reorganisation; The Implications

By Adesina Soyooye

Finally, the much awaited restructuring of the Nigeria Police Force has officially been announced. The road to it has been long. The process began during the Chairmanship of the Police Service Commission of Mike Okiro, a retired Inspector General of Police.

In conjunction with Force Headquarters, the PSC had mapped out and deliberated on the expansion of Police Formations, including increasing the number of Deputy Inspectors of Police from seven to eight, increasing of Zonal headquarters, increasing of Area Commands and Divisional Headquarters to help the Police perform optimally. But it never materialised at the time, even though everybody agreed it was the right thing to do. The reason why it never did, for the many times it was considered, was usually, paucity of funds.

Now, finally, it has come to light. Announcing the cheering news in Abuja on Thursday, the Force Headquarters, in a release signed by Force Public Relations Officer, DCP Frank Mba, said the restructuring, approved by President   Muhammadu Buhari, who is also the Chairman of the Police Council,  was part of efforts at addressing threats posed by the dynamics of crimes in the country and the full implementation of the Federal Government Community Policing initiative.

The reorganization includes full autonomy of the Force Intelligence Bureau (FIB), creation of five additional Police Zonal Command Headquarters and the decentralization of the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (FCIID).

“By this re-organization”, Mba explained, “the FIB, which was previously a section under the FCIID, is now a full-fledged Department of the Force to be headed by a Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG). With this new arrangement, the Nigeria Police Force now has eight (8) Departments and each is headed by a DIG.”

The Departments are:

*Department of Finance and Administration

*Department of Operation

*Department of Logistics and Supply

*Force Criminal Investigations Department (FCID)

*Department of Training and Development

*Department of Research and Planning

*Department of Information Communication Technology (ICT)

*Force Intelligence Department

The Federal Government also approved the further decentralization of the FCID with the establishment of two additional offices in Enugu and Gombe States. While the office in Enugu is expected to take care of investigations of major crimes emanating from the South-East and South-South geo-political zones, the office in Gombe will take care of the North-East geo-political zone. Each of these Annexes, in addition to the pre-existing ones in Lagos and Kaduna States, shall be headed by an Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) who shall report to the DIG in-charge of the FCID, Force Headquarters, Abuja.

In a similar vein, five (5) new Police Zonal Command Headquarters have been created for the Nigeria Police Force in addition to the hitherto existing twelve (12) Zonal Command Headquarters.

This makes a total of seventeen (17) Zonal Command Headquarters in the country. The five (5) new Zonal Commands are: Akure (Ondo/Ekiti Commands), Awka (Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi), Yenagoa (Bayelsa, Rivers Commands), Maiduguri (Yobe, Borno Commands) and Katsina (Katsina, Kaduna )

One of the implications is that one Zone will have more than one DIG. The office of the DIG is political, meanig that each zone of the Seven Zones of the Federation must have a slot. Now, increased to eight, one of the Zones will have two.

Recall, however, that during the IGship of Ringim, the South-east had two DIGs  – the very competent DIG Ivy Okoronkwo, who was the second in command at FHQs and DIG Azubuko.