With a view to enhance professionalism, effective and efficient policing, 10 Senior Police officers of the Sierra Leone Police recently graduated from the National Institute of Police Studies in Abuja, Nigeria, having successfully completed eight weeks intensive course in Strategic Leadership and Command.
The ten (10) senior Police officers who departed Sierra Leone for Abuja in June 2021 are the luckiest amongst a plethora of Senior Police Officers earmarked for the course. The Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ambrose Michael Sovula in his wisdom thought it fit that these Senior Officers should be capacitated in strategic leadership and command duties so as to keep them fit to face the task that lies ahead of them. On the 19 August 2021, Mr. Sovula availed himself in Nigeria to patronize with the 41 graduates-10 SLP Senior Police Officers and other Senior Police Officers from other African nations in a graduation ceremony held in Abuja, Nigeria.
In his keynote address during the graduation ceremony, IGP Sovula briefed the congregation on the bilateral relationship that had existed between Sierra Leone and Nigeria since colonial days. He pointed out recent bilateral developments which both countries have consensual enjoyed. He cited the role played by the Nigerian army during the country’s 11 years civil war, the socio-economic relationship between the two counties and other bilateral benefits.
He noted that upon his request in May this year, the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force accepted 10 participants from the Sierra Leone Police to attend the Strategic Leadership and Command Course 03 /2021, at the National Institute of Police Studies (NIPS) in Abuja from 27 June to 19 August 2021.
“My hope is to initiate a Cooperation Agreement between Police Officers Wives of Nigeria (POWA) and the Sierra Leone Police Wives Association (SLPWA) and to sustain it for the benefit of the two organizations for a very long time. It is also my dream to have this kind of initiative extended to our sisters in Ghana, Gambia and Liberia. I appreciate the support and cooperation of the POWA president and her able team and I look forward to the establishment of Police Wives Association of Anglophone West Africa very soon”. Mr. Sovula concluded.
Other events that climaxed the visit of Mr. Ambrose Michael Sovula (IGP) were the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Police Wives Association of Nigeria and the Sierra Leone Police Wives Association, as well as meeting with the South Korean Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The IGP emphasized that his main objective for the signing of such agreements is to strengthen capacity building and exchanging of programmes between the two organizations, for the benefit of our officers.
