Police Auxiliaries in the Policing Protocol of the Nigeria Police Force: Key Contributions and Operational Gaps in Practice

In October 2020, police auxiliaries, locally known as the Special Constabularies, were formally introduced into the Nigerian policing landscape to assist regular police officers in performing some law enforcement duties. Therefore, guided by the tenets of contingency theory, this paper critically discusses the status of police auxiliaries in Nigeria, focusing on the recorded gains and the gaps in practice associated with their emergence. This paper argues that the use of police auxiliaries for police work in Nigeria has proven to be beneficial in certain respects, such as the alleviation of the human resources deficit within the police workforce, the promotion of community policing, the strengthening of police intelligence gathering, and the enhancement of public compliance with policing efforts. However, the recruitment of this category of officers has also had some far-reaching consequences for policing and the public image of the Nigeria Police Force as a law enforcement agency due to some operational gaps in practice such as remuneration issues, the recruitment of individuals with questionable character, the involvement of some auxiliaries in unethical conduct, and the exposure of auxiliary officers to hazardous situations in the line of duty. Therefore, to fully reap the potential that is embedded in the recruitment of auxiliary officers for policing in Nigeria, the problems that have manifested as a result of the identified operational gaps in practice need to be holistically addressed.