Mr Solomon Arase, who is the Inspector-General of Police, has said that the Nigeria Police Force is considering conducting psychiatric test on recruits and serving officers.
Arase stated this at the Nigeria Police Force Health Policy Revalidation meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that the initiative became necessary following incidents of indiscriminate use of firearms by personnel of the force.
The IG said that in adequate manpower had exposed officers and men to working for longer hours.
He said that the force was also considering establishing a ‘trauma centre’ for its officers and men because of the nature of their job.
“The police should be concerned about the mental health of officers,” he said.
It would be recalled that Arase had advised Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) to always determine the mental awareness of officers before assigning firearms to them to curtail incidents of ‘accidental discharge.
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He said that inadequate health workers, poor funding, infrastructure deficit and management deficiencies had been some of the challenges inhibiting the force’s medical unit.
Arase noted that in order to tackle these challenges, it was expedient to develop a health policy for the force.
