Nigeria Police Officers Are Trained Like Colonial Policemen - Falana

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, remarked that the current police force is guided by colonial rules, stating that officers of the Nigeria Police Force are "trained like colonial policemen" brutalising the society.

The lawyer said this during a Skype chat with Politics Today on Channels Television.

He said that the real problems are not being addressed when it comes to reforming the country's police unit.

“We are really not addressing the problems,” he said, adding that “The training of the police is colonial; completely primitive. A man joining the Police Force, he goes to the police college. A woman goes to the police college dehumanised. She cannot make her hair; she has to cut her hair. A man has to shave his hair to the skull. The feeding is bad.”

His remarks on the police force come as Nigerians protest police brutality, and an aggressive reform of the force, with a focus on an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

Falana said, “They are trained like colonial policemen to brutalise the society and that is what is going on.

READ ALSO: Police Needs More Funding, Regular Training - House of Reps Member

“So, those who are in mobile unit – we used to call them kill and go in the Second Republic under IGP (Sunday) Adewusi (in office from 1981-1983), that has transformed into SARS.

“What is the training in the college? They (trainees) are teargassed in rooms without windows. And for them (the authorities) that is the way to train them. They are beaten, tortured, and the feeding is bad.

“So when the man or the woman comes out of the college, he wants to brutalise the society that dehumanised him in the college.

“Police stations are not funded. So, daily, to run the station, the DPOs depend on extortion of money from the public, from suspects.

“Some stations are not built by the government but by members of the community.”