The Nigerian Police Force (NPF) pre-retirement scheme has received a major boost as the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Premier Agribusiness Academy (PAA) have expressed commitment towards the training of officers on various value chains.
Aishatu Abubakar Baju, AIG of Police and who also is the president of the Veterinary Council of Nigeria during a courtesy visit to IITA facility in Ibadan, Oyo state expressed delight at the commitment made by the research institute and PAA towards ensuring the wellbeing of police officers after retirement.
According to her, many policemen suffer emotional and financial challenges after retirement which sometimes leads to depression and suicide while others fall into the hands of fraudsters while looking for a lucrative venture to invest their retirement benefit.
“In my 26 years of service, I have seen officers retire after serving their country for many years without concerning themselves with what happens to them and their families after retirement,” she said.
“The life of most policemen is concentrated in the protection of lives and properties and when they retire, most of them want to farm without prior knowledge of what they want to go into.
“Something has to be done about it. We need to bring in reputable training institutes like IITA and PAA to help train as many police officers as are interested in agriculture on world best practices that can guarantee returns on their investment after retirement,” she added.
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She noted that the Inspector General of Police is committed to the project and present the NPF has a facility in Kaduna with hostel accommodation, administrative blocks, training rooms, and other facilities for this purpose.
She stated that the idea of the NPF agric training facility is for interested policemen to come for agricultural training before they retire to learn as much as they need to succeed in agriculture after retirement.
“We have many state governors who have expressed interest in assisting us in establishing similar campuses in their states for easy accessibility of policemen all over the country. So, we are ready for this and I am happy that both IITA and PAA have also expressed their readiness to assist us.”
Responding, Frederick Schreurs, CEO, IITA Business Incubation Platform (BIP) said the IITA BIP’s founding objective is to stimulate product development and provide expertise and training in commercial agriculture and farm management among others.
He assured the AIG of the readiness of IITA in collaborating with the Nigerian Police in achieving its pre-retirement scheme objectives through PAA.
Schreurs assured the AIG and president of VCN of the quality of training police officers will get from IITA and showed her around the facility to see the progress of farmhouses borne out of the institute’s quality research.
Also responding, Francis Toromade, director-general of Premier Agribusiness Academy (PAA) said the retirement challenges faced by the police officers who dedicated years of their life in the service of humanity is a concern to all of Nigeria.
He added that in this regard, quality, world-class agribusiness training which PAA is known for is necessary to adequately prepare and equip police officers who are willing to engage in farming activities after their retirement.
He assured the AIG that PAA has the curriculum and world-class trained facilitators to impact interested officers with the needed knowledge to succeed in any form of agricultural practice.
According to him, PAA was established for learning, developing, and transferring well-researched and innovative competencies required for sustainable investment in all allied industries of the agri-sector.
