On December 14, FIJ reported how the Federal Government allocated more than N30 billion to renovations of presidential residences between 2021 and 2024.

By December 30, the National Assembly had scrutinised the budget and approved it. The legislators only made a few adjustments that increased the total figure by N1.2 trillion. The president signed the approved budget on January 1, and, at the time, it didn’t reflect any changes to presidential allocations.

FIJ looked into alternative uses for this N30 billion, especially how significant it would have been if the federal government had invested it in the Nigerian security architecture.

Since the police are the most important pillar of community security, FIJ considered what the security outfit is lacking, and two problems stood out. First, Nigeria doesn’t have enough police officers to cater to the security of its citizens. Secondly, police officers in Nigeria are not paid enough.

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Using the NPF salary review by the Buhari administration as a basis, FIJ determined that a police constable – the lowest rank in the Nigeria Police Force – should earn about N84,000 a month and N1,008,000 a year.

With this figure, N30 billion will conveniently sponsor 29,762 police constables per year. Meanwhile, the Nigeria police has just about 370,000 police officers, including those ranked higher than constables. By implication, the N30 billion would conveniently fund the salaries of all the constables in a month.

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Furthermore, the United Nations recommends a police-to-citizen ratio of one to 450 people. However, with an approximate population of 200 million people, Nigeria has just one police officer protecting 540 people.

From the available figures, Nigeria needs 74,444 new police officers plus its current strength to meet the globally recommended standard.

If the government were to direct the funding for renovations to the Nigerian police, it could address the problem of underfunding or understaffing to an extent.

The N30 billion could cater to the incomes of 29,762 new police constables, which is about 40 percent of the number needed to meet the UN-recommended police-to-citizen ratio.

For context, the presidency has allocated a considerable chunk of public funds to renovating the same portion of the presidential residences over the past four years. Some of the buildings received considerably higher allocations in the active budget despite Tinubu’s promise to cut the cost of governance.