We Don’t Have Enough Men To Police 160m Nigerians — Olaoye

Mr Wale Olaoye, managing director and chief executive officer, Halogen Security Company Limited, in this interview with FEMI OGBONNIKAN, bares his mind on the prospects of private security business in Nigeria, the operating environment, cybercrime, among others.

Your job is that of securing lives and property; does it not overlap with that of the police?

Principally, anywhere in the world, the police institution itself is associated with providing law and order in the society. So we call them officers of the law of the nation. They are the first in law to instill law and order in any environment. It is no longer news that the minimum standard expected of policing in any country demands that the number of those policing should also move in tandem with the population.

There is a benchmark, according to the United Nations police:population ratio standard, that any country should have. It is no news that the police:population ratio in Nigeria is no longer able to cope with that standard. We don't have enough policemen to police the 160 million people in this country.

Without saying much, there is already a widening gap in the ability of the personnel to keep law and order in the society. What we should ask is how come we have more private security companies as against the police (the government security agency that has the mandate to provide law and order in country)?

That is how private security companies evolved anywhere in the world to ensure the effectiveness of law and order in the society. Bringing it back home, we started by circumstances. There was a need and gap that needed to be met and closed by providing security to all companies.

We started by providing our own internal security and that was how we began to offer the services to the market. We started as a guard company. If you look at critical areas of our infrastructure, critical national assets such as the National Stadium, Tafawa Balewa Square, PHCN installations, telecommunication installations, water corporations, federal and state ministries, etc, those protecting these assets are personnel of the private security firms and this implies that the police alone can't cope with the duty of maintaining law and order in this country.

How favourable is the operating environment for private security operators in the industry?

We have many categories of private security companies in Nigeria. We are in category 'A'. That licence means that we have national spread and we also have the capacity that categorised us by the standard and spread of what we do. Our spread is by the service delivery that we provide. The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) is the regulator of this business. That means that every guard company must register with the NSCDC.

Regulation starts with licencing. A lot needs to change. There is need for best practices. You will find out that we have very few organisations or practitioners who are also self-regulated. What do we see that is happening? There is need for change to raise the bar, increase the standards and ensure that the market is protected to a large extent and also ensure that the quality of service that is delivered is consistent with the benchmark.

-naij