• DOI:10.1007/978-981-13-8215-4_16
• Corpus ID: 199886322

Understanding Police Corruption and Its Effect on Internal Security in Nigeria

@article{Enweremadu2019UnderstandingPC,
  title={Understanding Police Corruption and Its Effect on Internal Security in Nigeria},
  author={David Uchenna Enweremadu},
  journal={Internal Security Management in Nigeria},
  year={2019}
}

• D. U. Enweremadu
• Published 2019
• Law
• Internal Security Management in Nigeria

This chapter examines corrupt practices among members of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in the context of rising internal insecurity. Of particular concern is to determine the extent and dimensions of corruption within the police, the factors responsible for such practices and how they impact on the safety of lives and property of members of the public. The chapter combines both primary and secondary data, which were collected through opinion surveys (questionnaires) and content analysis of secondary materials (journals, articles, newspapers and internet materials), respectively. The chapter reveals that police corruption is a major contributing factor to internal insecurity in Nigeria. A commonly mentioned effect of police corruption on the society is the loss of lives through extrajudicial killings; arrest and illegal detention of citizens orchestrated by policemen and citizens’ unwillingness to report suspected cases of crimes to police making such crimes difficult to curtail. The causes of these anomalies include inadequate or irregular welfare packages for policemen, low level of professionalism within the force and political class interference in the operations of the police. On the basis of these findings, the study recommends that the authorities should recruit more and better-educated police officers, improve logistics and welfare packages and move towards an independent and community police.