Nigeria landed in another negative list after the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, was ranked as the worst in the 2016 World Internal Security and Police Index.
Of 127 countries measured in the index, Nigeria’s police force ranks as the worst, just below DR Congo, Kenya and Uganda to make up the bottom four.
The index, a collaboration between the International Police Science Association and the Institute for Economics and Peace, focuses on how much resources each nation devotes to internal security, whether the resources are used in an effective manner and whether the public view the police favorably. The index also assesses the current threats to internal security in each country.
Nigeria’s scores ranked in the bottom 10 countries for all indicators measured.
Nigeria has only 219 police officers for every 100,000 citizens—below the index median of 300 and the sub-Saharan Africa average of 268, according to the report. Private security doesn’t fill much of that gap either with only 71 personnel per 100,000 Nigerians—one of the five lowest rates globally. That thin workforce has been stretched even more by the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, rampaging herdsmen in the middle belt region and the rampant kidnapping in Nigeria’s south.
Corruption is a key issue for Nigeria’s police force as well as shown by the report: 81% of respondents admitted to paying a bribe to a police officer in the past year and police officers were found likely to “to use their public positions for private gain.” Public trust in the police is dire as less than 1% of thefts were reported to police officers, the report says.
The Nigeria Police Force has rejected the report as absolute falsehood which should be disregarded.
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