7 - Sustaining a Tradition of Policing Through Alienation: An Assessment of Recruitment and Training in the Colonial and Postcolonial Nigeria Police

The Nigeria police force is problem-endowed. These problems are structural and institutional. Of these, alienation stands out as the most fundamental. Aliena- tion as a policy of policing in Nigeria dates back to the colonial period. The need for a police force was borne out of the desire to protect the person and property of the colonizing authority and to impress on the inhabitants the might of the occupying power. In the post-independence period, this requirement was slightly modified to incorporate the interests of the indigenous property-owning class. To ensure this, the mode of recruitment and training has retained the traits inherited from the colonial period. This article examines the colonial and contem- porary recruitment and training programmes as the basis of alienation. It posits that the recruitment and training programme estranged the police from the pub- lic and the public from the police. This has produced a hostile police-public relationship while at the same time ensuring that the interests of the ruling class are protected.