Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced Monday that at least 10,000 new police officers would be hired with a view to boosting domestic security and establishing a "multi-agency anti-terrorism taskforce". "I have defined youth employment as one of the cardinal objectives of our administration," Buhari, a retired army general who was elected president in May, said at a Monday security summit held in capital Abuja. "In furtherance to this, the federal government is planning to employ at least 10,000 extra police officers and establish a properly trained and equipped federal anti-terrorism multi-agency taskforce that will effectively address the challenge of future insurgencies," he declared. Buhari added that domestic security would be enhanced with the use of new technologies and improved police training. "Efforts are being made to enhance the operational capacity of police officers through a tailor-made training program that will give them the right civil orientation [to carry out] their roles as guardians of the constitution," he stated. In order to further bolster public security, Buhari added, "consideration is being given to the expansion of the CCTV [closed-circuit television] monitoring system across major cities and towns, while the police accountability mechanism will be strengthened". The president went on to say that his administration would also "encourage [regional] states to look at state-level community interacting with police under a model that will integrate members of the community into policing functions at the grassroots level". The police apparatus in Nigeria – a country of some 175 million people – currently contains some 370,000 personnel.
