Police Recruitment: Pastor Bakare Recommends OND As Minimum Qualification

General Overseer of Citadel Global Community Church, formerly known as Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has proposed Ordinary National Diploma as the minimum qualification for recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force.

Bakare said such OND holders must graduate from a recognised polytechnic and also be people who finished with the minimum of the second-class lower division.

He said this while commenting on the ongoing #EndSARS protests which have called for a reformation of the Nigeria Police Force.

According to him, the Nigeria Police Academy would be compelled “to upgrade to a degree-awarding tertiary institution affiliated with a Nigerian university,” while Nigeria Police Force would “transform into a Nigeria Police Service, and further build the bridge between Nigerians and the Police.”

Bakare made the suggestion on Sunday in a nationwide broadcast in his church.

He also advocated a restructuring of the National Youth Service Corps.

He said, “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 cleric condemned the deployment of soldiers to attack and “unjustly kill” #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos last Tuesday, saying the Nigerian state has blood on its hands.

Bakare said, “In the spirit of the new Nigerian culture, government must jettison the leadership model of the biblical Pharaoh and Rehoboam, who ruined their nations through obstinacy. Leaders must begin to listen to the people and show empathy to their plight. We need leaders like Nehemiah who quelled a protest, not by the force of arms, but by the moral authority of exemplary, sacrificial leadership.

“We need leaders like the late Nelson Mandela, who converted institutions of division and oppression to symbols of unity and empathy. We need sensitive leaders who are not ashamed to shed tears with the wounded and who can tell the broken, ‘Your pain is my pain, and I will do everything in my power to lift your burden.”