May 16, 2023

The Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF) has begun a four-day training on public order and modern crowd management for no fewer than 100 police personnel in Zamfara.

Speaking at the event in Gusau on Tuesday, Mr. Bashir Umar, an NPTF Programme Coordinator, said that the training would imbue young police officers with public order policing techniques.

He said that the fund was committed to ensuring that Nigerian police officers attain best global policing practices.

“The participants will also understand how to implement modern crowd control system without using excessive force,” he said.

Umar said that the training was part of the fund’s 2022 intervention aimed at improving the capacity of police personnel.

“We want to have a police system that adheres strictly to globally accepted rules of engagement in crowd control.

“So this programme is part of our mandate to train and retrain police personnel for effective service delivery,” he said.

He said that the NPTF would continue to be proactive in delivering on its mandate to train personnel and equip the police service with modern security gadgets.

The programme coordinator urged the participants to take the training seriously and apply knowledge gained during the exercise in their daily activities.

“It is our hope that the training will boost the participants’ knowledge and skills in public order, crowd management and general crime prevention,” he said.

In his lecture, Dr Aondowase Targba, of the Department of Sociology, Federal University Gusau, called for the recruitment of more personnel into the police force.

Targba who delivered a lecture on public order and crowd management, said that the police force was grossly understaffed.

“The police system must be well-staffed and equipped with modern crime fighting gadgets to perform optimally.

“The Nigeria Police as it is today, does not meet the United Nations required standard of one policeman to 140 citizens.

“Especially when you consider the nation’s population estimated at 200 million people,” he said.

The lecturer also urged the police to remain professional and resist interference from politicians.

He lauded the trust fund for the effort in training and retraining of police personnel to enhance crowd management and public peace.

Security experts and senior police officers are expected to speak at the event.

The training is organised in collaboration with a consultant, ADDEZ Global ventures.(NAN)