THE acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), Hafiz Ringim, has tabled a demand before the presidency for the scrapping of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on the ground that its functions were overlapping with that of the police.

The police boss was at the presidential villa, on Monday, for a meeting of the Police Reform Committee with Vice-President Namadi Sambo, where a presidency source revealed that he was worried about the existence of the corps whose personnel had inched into the police force’s statutory responsibilities.

The acting IGP was said to have complained that members of the corps had been allowed to bear arms when they were not sufficiently trained for it, stressing the need for something to be done before an ugly situation developed.

A statement later issued on the meeting from the Office of the Vice-President noted that Ringim lamented that some parts of the 2007 Act setting up the NSCDC violated the provisions of Section 214 (1) of the 1999 Constitution which established the Nigeria Police Force.

The statement said the acting IGP had vowed to press ahead with the efforts to reform the force and advocated the streamlining of the functions of the police and the corps “to ensure clarity of roles and avoidance of conflicts between the two security organisations.”

The statement revealed that Sambo had now set up an independent committee, headed by the National Security Adviser (NSA), General Owoeye Azazi, “to investigate the claims of overlapping functions by the Nigeria Police Force.”



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