The Nation newspaper reports that he made the remark while laying the foundation for the construction of
the Crime and Incident Data Base Centre at the Force Headquarters in
Abuja.
According to him, the Nigerian Police personnel, from many instances
worldwide, are better trained and equipped than their counterparts in
other countries. But he promised that the government will continue to
support it achieve more successes, nationally and globally.
He said: “The Nigeria Police is one of the very best that we have
anywhere in the world and I say so because I have worked with law
enforcement agents for many years. I have served in the United Nations
special operations in the justice sector like the UN Mission in Somalia
for about a year and I saw Police Forces from everywhere across the
world.
“The Nigeria Police was there too and everybody admitted that they were
possibly the most effective on ground there in Somalia. They were
effective because they were better trained, better educated than every
other Police Force that was there, besides, they were well equipped by
the UN,” he added.
The Vice President commended the establishment of a Crime and Incident
Data Base Centre for the Police, adding that Nigeria was ready for smart
policing.
The Centre, he said, will go a long way in helping the Police address crime using technology.
“The direction that we should be going is smart policing. Policing that
is technology serving and based more on common sense and technology than
just manually doing everything.
“I think one of the most important things that this Crime Data Base
Centre will do is to equip the Police, to be able to do the kind of
investigation that is required to cope with crime today,” he said.
He urged the Police to collaborate with other data processing agencies in the country in order to fully utilize the Centre.
Speaking earlier, the Acting Inspector General of Police, Mr Ibrahim
Idris said the data base centre will further equip the police in its
quest to rid the country of criminals.
According to him, the project is estimated to cost over N16 billion.
“This project is costing about N16 billion but this is the first phase.
The federal government has been supporting us to modernise the Police
Force, to ensure that we move in tandem with modern strategies in
policing. For us, it’s very important to move ahead of the criminals,
who always want to be a step ahead of us, so that we will be able to
arrest and prosecute them,” he stated.