To effectively fight crime, Nigeria needs to recruit thirty thousand police personnel annually for five years to meet United Nations recommendation.

Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, said this while dialoguing with civil society organisations under the umbrella of Situation Room’ as he turned one year in office.

He said when compared to other countries with over one million police personnel, Nigeria was under-policed because it had not attained the United Nations ratio of one-policeman-to-four-citizens ratio.

Idris explained that the deficit in the number of policemen in the country arose between 2010 and 2016 when there was no recruitment of rank and file officers.

He said the force was working on addressing the gaps to ensure that it could secure the nation effectively.

The police boss said a major challenge of the force was funding, saying the police could do better with proper funding, “not the envelope budget it currently gets’’.

‎Executive Director, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre and the convener of the Situation Room, Clement Nwankwo said the event was organised to dialogue with the IGP on his one year in office.

Nwankwo said there was need for collaboration between civil society organisations and the police so that the citizens would understand their activities.

He said that there were many issues that citizens demanded answers to and that dialogues as was held between the CSOs and the police provided platform for responses to the questions.

Nwankwo urged the police to address issues of kidnapping, herdsmen attacks of farming communities and agitations in the country “by dealing with the issues appropriately.