POLICY BRIEF – APPOINTMENTS, RETIREMENTS AND PROMOTIONS IN THE NIGERIA POLICE FORCE

The increasing lack of capacity by the Nigeria Police Force to promptly and adequately respond to the escalating security challenges in Nigeria has become evident by the general decline of law enforcement and crime control across the country. This has generated debate among scholars, policy analysts and practitioners, especially on the need to reform and reposition the police as a security institution. The arguments in the debate have ranged from the imperative of addressing the traditionally centralised model of policing in Nigeria as well as the need to boost the low workforce capacity and poor funding of the police. This Policy Brief contributes to this ongoing debate on police reform. The opinion espoused here is that the extant arguments can further be expanded by also examining, in a more critical way, the implications of the practice of appointing IGPs from the rank of AIGs rather than DIGs, which has subsisted since 2010.