Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is the worst in the world, according to the 2016 World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI).
The WISPI was released by two bodies – the International Police Science Association and the Institute for Economics and Peace.
The report measured the ability of the police to address internal security issues. The police in 127 countries were assessed across four key areas.
The areas are capacity, process, legitimacy and outcomes.
The report showed that Nigeria underperformed on all four domains, with a score of 0.255.
“There are 219 police officers for every 100,000 Nigerians, well below both the Index median of 300, and the sub-Saharan Africa region average of 268,” the report read.
“This limits the capacity of the force to measure up to its law and order mandate.
“In terms of process, legitimacy and outcomes, the story is not different which makes the force fall short of the required standard.
“High levels of political terror have been an issue for Nigeria since 1993, with the country scoring a 4 on the Political Terror Scale every year since then.”
“Terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to internal security. Terrorism has increased dramatically over the last three years, with more than 62,000 people being killed in terrorist attacks between 2012 and 2014. The biggest rise in the last year occurred in Nigeria.”
But Jimoh Moshood, spokesman of the police force, rejected the report saying Nigeria police is the best in Africa.
According to the report, the top 10 performing African countries are Botswana which ranked highest at 47, followed by Rwanda which took the 50 position.
Others are Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa and Mali, in that order.
The 10 underperforming African countries are Madagascar (111th), Zambia (112th), Ethiopia (115th), Sierra Leone (117th), Cameroon (120th), Mozambique (122nd), Uganda (124th), Kenya (125th), Democratic Republic of Congo (126th).
Europe was at the top of the global rankings, with eight European countries in total.
But the Nigeria police force described the report as false and mischievous.
Reacting, Jimoh Moshood, police spokesman, described the research as baseless , saying it is an attempt to “cast aspersions on the achievement of the police”.
Moshood said Nigeria police force is currently the best in Africa, judging by its performance.
“The report is not correct, the Nigeria police force rejects it in its entirety because it is complete falsehood,” he told TheCable.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the performance of the Nigeria police force at this critical time is at the highest because if you go to various missions across the world, our personnel are there doing the country proud.
“And even when you look at our performance in terms of internal security, cases of kidnapping and armed robbery have drastically reduced to the barest minimum. The security situation in the country now is such that people can go about their duties without any fear.
“So it is wrong for an unknown organisation to come up with such report. We do not know the yardstick they used and definitely, it is not empirical. Who did they talk to? Such an organisation should know there are equally legal implications against falsehood.”
He said as evidence that the force is the best in Africa, Nigeria is currently the leader of INTERPOL in Africa, adding: “If we are the worst, we will not be elected as the leader of INTERPOL on the continent”
Moshood added: “As we speak, the Somalia police hierarchy is in Nigeria to understudy what we are doing at home here; to copy from us. So if they are here, that shows you we have achieved a lot.
“Even for elections security in Nigeria, we have done the best in ensuring peaceful election in various parts of the country and we will continue to do our best to ensure that elections are peaceful.
“And in checking excesses within the force, a lot has been done in that regard.
“So we want Nigerians to disregard the report in its entirety because it doesn’t reflect the achievements of the force.”
