The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Solomon Arase, has raised concerns about the cost of buying and maintaining dogs trained to assist his men in policing.
Arase expressed his worry at the commissioning of the ultra-modern mounted troop/veterinary complex and state of the art dog breeding centre on Thursday in Abuja where he revealed that the Nigerian Police Force has spent over N600m for the procurement and maintenance of foreign dogs in its stable.
He said the current economic situation cannot sustain the continuous importation of dogs, adding that apart from high cost of maintaining most of the dogs, they also failed to adapt to the Nigeria’s policing clime.
Arase explained that the construction of Dog Breeding Centre would help the Nigeria Police acquire capacity to breed police dogs locally, and in that way attained self-reliance and have cost advantage.
He said, “The initiative is also designed to, in the long-term, support the operations dog requirement of sister law enforcement organisations, armed forces as well as breeding of friendly puppies for the civilian population on commercial basis. This is with the intention of evolving the centre into a self-sustaining dog breeding centre as practiced in other climes.
“The breeding centre being commissioned today has the capacity to conveniently breed and supply police dogs to the entire West African sub-region and it is projected that at optimal breeding capacity, it can produce well above 200 dogs per year.
“With this commissioning, procurement of dogs for policing activities from foreign countries would now become a thing of the past.”
