The minister noted that this was to reaffirm the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s (retd.), sincere commitment to bequeath a reformed, professionalisd, highly motivated, and knowledge-based police force in Nigeria.
The governing board which consists of stakeholders from the police ecosystem and academia was inaugurated at the Ministry of Police Affairs Headquarters in Abuja on Friday.
The ministry’s Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Bolaji Kazeem, revealed in a statement Friday night, and obtained by our correspondent.
According to the spokesperson, the minister noted that the overall objective of the academy is to encourage the advancement of learning and to avail members of the Nigeria Police Force the opportunity of acquiring a higher and liberal education without distinction of race, creed, sex, political conviction, or religious persuasion.
Kazeem said, “He added that the institution provides courses of instruction and other facilities for the pursuit of teaching and learning in all the facilities and campuses of the Academy and nurtures, equips, and produces globally competitive police officers with the requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes suitable for leadership, scholarship, policing, and community service
He added that “POLAC encourages and promotes academic excellence; conducts research in relevant fields of learning and human endeavor; aligns its activities to the security, social, cultural, and economic needs of the people of Nigeria as well as prepares cadets through well-articulated theory and practice for careers of service and achievements.”
Dingyadi also recalled that the academy whose governing board was inaugurated, took off simultaneously in 1988 at two temporary campuses; the Police Training School, Challawa, Kano, where cadet inspectors were trained, and the Police College, Kaduna, where cadet ASPs were trained.
He added, “The two campuses were merged and relocated to its permanent site in Wudil, Kano, after it was formally commissioned on April 2, 1996. However, the institution was upgraded to a degree-awarding institution in September 2012.”
The Minister further revealed that the approval of the governing board of the Nigeria Police Academy by the President, seeks to fully operationalize the provisions of the Police Academy (Establishment) Act 2021, earlier signed into law by Buhari on April 7, 2022.
Dingyadi noted that the academy’s governing board known as the Nigeria Police Academy Council among others, has the statutory responsibility to exercise control and supervise the policy, finances, and property of the academy; promote and discipline staff of the academy that are not police officers on the advice of the appropriate committees, and approve the academic and police programmes of the academy.
Responding on behalf of the board members, the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, pledged the commitment of the board to transform POLAC into a center of excellence.
According to Baba, the academy had since its establishment, grown from strength to strength and would continue to produce fine police officers in various fields of study.
“We are proud of this academy which is one of its kind in the world, and we believe it will be one university that no parent would want to miss for his child to be,” Baba said.
