A pro-democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari account for what his administration did with the $1 billion that it took from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) in the name of purchasing and procurement of combat weapons.

This is coming agaisnt the background that the minister for information, Lai Mohammed had accused the international weapon sellers of refusing to sell arms to Nigeria.

Besides, the Rights group, however, canvassed for the aggressive training of the operatives and officers of the Nigeria Police Force to embrace the skills of intelligence gathering and proactive policing rather than the dominant reactive methodology they are using to enforce the law.

HURIWA, therefore, urged Nigerians never to get tired of providing support and solidarity for the members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria as they increasingly get involved in the intensive campaigns and war against terrorists and the diverse segments of armed non-state actors that are unleashing bloody violence against civilians all over the country.

“We appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to do all he can to sufficiently equip the men and officers of the Armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“We are by this statement demanding that President Muhammadu Buhari provide the fuller accounts of what this administration did with the $1 Billion that it took from the nation’s escrow account in the name of purchasing and procurement of combat weapons.

“Nigerians want to know what was bought with that humongous amount if the government has admitted publicly that it is finding it difficult to procure arms to battle the armed Islamists of Boko haram terrorists?”

In a statement signed on Thursday in Abuja by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said one of the causes of the increasing crimes rate is the dearth and lack of intelligence gathering capacity on the part of most police operatives and officers who ought to lead the process of crime-fighting and law enforcement.

The Rights group argued that the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu has in the last four years failed to build up the intelligence generating capacity of the police.

“It is unbelievable that armed and violent criminals are allowed to roam freely all around the Country and to continuously unleash devastating and bloody violence on the citizenry but the operatives of the Nigerian Police seems to be gravely ill-equipped with the 21st-century compliant policing skills which must of necessity include the effective deployment of capacity to generate intelligence and to build a formidable data bank of useful tips and information so as to be able to fall back on such abundant actionable materials to tackle crime.

“The Nigerian Police still operate as if we are in the 18th Century era because the police lack the technology to fight crime, the Nigerian Police lacks the scientific facilities like fingerprints devices to stop criminal on their track before they strike but every year humongous budgetary releases are made but it seems that the Country is grossly under policed and unsecured, ” HURIWA said in the statement.

HURIWA wondered what kind of police will wait for a citizen to first be killed before they will shamelessly announce to us that the suspected killers have been apprehended.

HURIWA added that in Nasarawa and Ondo States, the APC Party Chairman was killed and a first-class traditional ruler was murdered by armed non-state actors, but the Police which could not prevent these violent crimes from happening will only rush to the media to announce to us that the killers have been arrested.

“This reactive form of policing like people groping in the dark is not sustainable and has no capacity to check the high crime rates. The Nigerian Police Force and its hierarchy should update their knowledge of making the police effective through proactive strikes of criminals before they attack, ” it added.

HURIWA, therefore, tasked the authorities to fine-tune and rejig the policing strategies in the country because as, the police has proven incapable of combating violent crimes, and this lacuna and incapacity to play the routine policing duties has overburdened the Nigerian Army to partly go into internal security operations rather than concentrate and wage a relentless war against terrorists threatening to tear Nigeria apart.