Pastor Tunde Bakare calls for renaming of Nigeria Police Force
A former vice presidential candidate to President Muhammadu Buhari and General Overseer of Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Sunday proposed a change in the appellation of the current Nigeria Police Force to Nigeria Police Service while the minimum entry qualification should be an Ordinary National Diploma (OND) obtained from a recognised polytechnic.
Bakare, a social crusader whose church started as Latter Rain Assembly in Ogba area of Ikeja in Lagos state, said such OND qualifications must be those not lesser than second-class lower division.
According to him, the new arrangement should equally see the country’s police academy “upgrade to a degree-awarding tertiary institution affiliated with a Nigerian university, transform into a Nigeria Police Service, and further build the bridge between Nigerians and the police.”
Pastor Bakare also made similar proposals for the restructuring of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, suggesting a new two year duration that incorporates military and agro-entrepreneurship training for corps members.
His words: “The NYSC provides an opportunity to achieve capacity building for economic development, to beef up our national security and defence infrastructure, as well as build the bridge of trust between the people and the armed forces. At this juncture, I reiterate my recommendation that the NYSC becomes an optional two-year programme with the first year spent on military training for our young people and the second year spent on agro-entrepreneurship.”
The Blueprint Newspaper reported that the cleric spoke in a nationwide broadcast from his church in Ogba on Sunday in response to the events that has plagued the country following the #EndSARS protests and the resultant wanton destruction of lives and properties across Nigeria.
He condemned the use of force by soldiers against genuine protesters at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos last Tuesday who he said “unjustly kill” #EndSARS protesters affirming that
“the Nigerian state has blood on its hands”.
