Police Colleges Mess: Minister, IG in secret meeting

Minister of police affairs, Navy Capt Caleb Olubolade and Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar today held a marathon and secret meeting which lasted for the better part of the morning and afternoon hours.

The meeting which held at the Police Force headquarters, over what it was reliably gathered that it was connected with the recent expose on the Ikeja Police College rot came a day after the minister had also paid a similar visit to the office of the chief of staff to the president and Vice President Namadi Sambo at the presidential villa.

The ministry and the Police high command came under severe tongue lashing from Nigerians for the unsightly image of the police college shown by a private media.

The documentary on the college which elicited a prompt visit by President Goodluck Jonathan also provoked the call for a probe of the funds appropriated for the college and other institutions of the police over the years.

The minister while reacting to the purpose of his visit to the force headquarters said " I am here to follow up on what I have just spoken about. To interact with the  IG and his management team, to look at lapses and how we will surmount it, because its a joint effort and I think its critical to do that. Ordinarily I would have called this meeting at the ministry of police affairs but once I have a management team with them, sometimes I like to do leg stretch. I come around I see some progress so that is why I'm here.

"Some of the discussions we had were not only on Police College, but how to address fighting crimes, kidnapping, terrorism and all those kind of things we also addressed it on one hand.

"On the other hand, we looked at training and training institutionsnot only of police colleges because solving the police college alone is not enough we will solve police colleges and training institutions including the Police Academy in Kano as well as the staff college in Jos. Once we address those issues we'll be making better progress. So in all, this meeting is aimed at repositioning the  police to attend to training matter and to attend to operational matter so that this year we will see a better policing in Nigeria.

On his visit to the presidency the minister said "I went to the presidency to see the chief of staff and that is a regular routine thing that we do because Mr President is also away. I also paid a similar visit to the Vice President so that at both ends if there are issues that pertain to the police I will like to hear or know how to go about it".

------ENAKENO OJO/DAILY TIMES