The Nigerian Mobile Police (MOPOL) force is the

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

arm of the Nigeria Police Force and operate under orders from the Nigerian federal government.

Organization

The Police Mobile Force was established as a strike or Anti-riot unit under the control of the

Inspector-General of Police An Inspector General of Police is a senior police officer in the police force or police service of several nations. The rank usually refers to the head of a large regional command within a police service, and in many countries refers to the most se ...

to counter incidents of civil disturbance. It is designated to take over operations of major crisis where conventional police units cannot cope. The 40,000 strong PMF is deployed in 52 Police Mobile Squadrons, each of approximately 700 men, spread amongst the 36 State Commands and

Federal Capital Territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

(FCT).

Mission

The Mobile Police have developed into a full-fledged security and anti-crime force to combat armed banditry, violent militant groups, religious insurrection, and many others. The police mobile force also provides guards at the residences of senior Police officers, both serving and retired, the Diplomatic community, their offices and senior Government officials. The PMF has also been charged with the protection of strategic economic sites such as oil installations, on and off shore flow station, Pipeline protection, and other oil related servicing companies. The Police Mobile Force conducts nationwide anti-crime patrols to combat organized crime. They have equally been involved in patrolling and maintenance of law and order operations in volatile states of the country such as Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Kano, and Bauchi. Mopol have been in UN, ECOWAS, AU and Others peacekeeping operations.

Uniforms and equipment

The typical attire of the MOPOL consists of a black shirt/vest with

olive drab Olive is a dark yellowish-green color, like that of unripe or green olives. As a color word in the English language, it appears in late Middle English. Shaded toward gray, it becomes olive drab. Variations Olivine Olivine is the typic ...

khaki The color khaki (, ) is a light shade of tan with a slight yellowish tinge. Khaki has been used by many armies around the world for uniforms and equipment, particularly in arid or desert regions, where it provides camouflage relative to sandy ...

trousers, also

green shirt, Military camouflage and canvas boots, accompanied by a black cap or beret (black/green/blue as well as an automatic rifle. As guardians of oil operations, MOPOL may carry the designation of the company name on their equipment.

Criticisms

The constraints besetting the Mobile Police are enormous and varied. These range from lack of adequate office and barracks accommodation to a shortage of arms and ammunition, operational vehicles, communication equipment and non payment of allowances to personnel on emergency duties as at when due. The Mobile Police have been widely reported as brutal violators of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

, particularly during the 1990s, which has earned them the nickname "Kill-and-Go" amongst the Nigerian population (this is because they are known to gun down innocent civilians and simply walk away with impunity). The MOPOL constitute one of the primary means of political repression employed by the Nigerian state for maintaining control over the population; they were involved in such cases as the oppression and occupation of

Ogoniland The Ogonis are a people in the Rivers South East senatorial district of Rivers State, in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria. They number just over 2 million and live in a homeland which they also refer to as Ogoniland. They share common ...

and MOSOP in the mid-1990s, as well as the

Ijaw Ijaw may refer to: * Ijaw people *Ijaw languages The Izon languages (), otherwise known as the Ịjọ languages, are the languages spoken by the Izon people in southern Nigeria. Classification The Ijo languages were traditionally considered a ...

and

Itsekiri The Itsekiri (also called the Isekiri, ''iJekri'', ''Itsekri'', ''Ishekiri'', or Itsekhiri) are one of the Yoruboid subgroup of Nigeria's Niger Delta area, Delta State. The Itsekiris presently number 2.7 million people and live mainly in the W ...

conflicts in the latter portion of the decade. Individual human rights abuses are too widespread for reportage, however, reports by the BBC include instances of "killing of a soccer fan over his T-shirt, the killing of five traders who were robbed and the shooting of a popular local musician after a musical performance over money". As part of the Internal Security Task Force deployed in

, police funded by

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

opened fire on unarmed protesters, "killing one person and wounding several others". The Mobile Police are also intimately connected to the security apparatus of the oil corporations operating in Nigeria, particularly the

Niger Delta The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states, which include: all six states from the South South geopolitic ...

, as the companies are required to pay the requisite salaries and expenses of Mobile Police forces engaged in the protection of oil operations. Mobile Police are designated to the protection of company assets and, although the MOPOL are under state control, companies such as Shell have admitted to supplying arms and munitions to their MOPOL conditions. This has earned the MOPOL forces charged with guarding oil facilities titles of "Shell Police", "

Mobil Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. ...

Police", and others.

References

Sources

# World Police Encyclopedia, ed. by Dilip K. Das & Michael Palmiotto published by Taylor & Francis. 2004, # World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems,second edition, Gale., 2006 # Sullivan, Larry E. Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2005.

External links

Mobile Police Force official siteBBC Report: ''Nigeria's trigger happy police ''
{{Africa topic, Law enforcement in Military of Nigeria Federal law enforcement agencies of Nigeria