LocationsBy Tolu Oresanya
Improving Welfare, Strengthening Institutions: How UNDP-Supported Mobile Clinics Are Transforming Police Training Schools in Nigeria
July 16, 2026
Through ten mobile medical clinics, police training institutions are receiving critical healthcare support that places trainee and instructor welfare at the centre of effective, accountable and people-focused policing.
UNDP Nigeria/ Tolu Oresanya
Every functioning society depends, in some way, on the quality of its police force. The reality of policing, not the perception of it. The officer who de-escalates a volatile situation at 2am. The constable who secures a crime scene with professionalism and care. The new recruits will one day protect a community from chaos that threatens it. They must be well-trained before they are deployed into the most complex, high-stakes, morally demanding job to serve and protect the public.
hief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Mary Onyi, Officer in Charge, Medical Facility, PTS Calabar
UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya
In Nigeria, that training takes place across a network of police training schools and colleges spread across the country, with the goal of transforming civilians into servicemen and women capable of upholding the law, protecting human rights, and earning the trust of the communities they serve. This year the Nigeria Police Force undertook the monumental task of recruiting 50,000 new officers, with an additional 30,000 expected annually thereafter. The pipeline is enormous. The pressure on training institutions is intense. The condition in which training occurs is important, not only for operational reasons but also for moral considerations.
That was precisely the gap that UNDP sought to close. Through the Supporting Police Accountability and Transformation Project, ten mobile medical clinics, generously funded by the Federal Government of Germany, were delivered in partnership with the Global Security Sector Reform Foundation and deployed to Police Training Schools across the country in December 2024. What happened next is the story worth telling.
The Police Training School (PTS), Odukpani, at Calabar, sits on a compound whose terrain tells its own story. The topography is hilly and uneven – the kind of landscape that turns an emergency into a logistical challenge before medical attention has even begun.
"I met a two-bedroom flat inside the barracks. That is where we had been using, prior to this mobile clinic. You go to the left; a staff member is staying there. You go to the right; another staff member is there. So, we were situated in the center." -Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Mary Onyi.
Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Mary Onyi has been at Police Training School (PTS) Odukpani, Calabar, since December 2020. Six years navigating a system that required her to deliver healthcare from a residential space that was not built for the purpose. The physical arrangement alone was limiting. But there was a dimension to it that went beyond practicality. She is a senior medical officer. She receives colleagues, visiting personnel, and inspectors. The facility she received them in did not reflect the seriousness of her profession.
"It came to a point where, if I had to receive other medical personnel, it was challenging for me to take them there. But here, you can bring in anyone. You feel like you belong."
The word “belong” carries considerable meaning. It speaks to something that procurement reports and logistics assessments rarely capture: the professional dignity of those responsible for maintaining a healthy training institution. CSP Onyi did not just want better equipment. She wanted a space that matched the gravity of her undertaking.
Her colleague, Superintendent of Police (SP) Ofem Omini, a registered nurse who has served the school with equal dedication for eleven years, recalls the clinical constraints. Medication storage was improvised without reliable power. The cold chain – the temperature-controlled environment essential for preserving vaccines and toxoids – simply did not exist.
"We were sourcing toxoids from patent shop dealers before UNDP came. We could not preserve them properly." - SP Ofem Omini, Registered Nurse, PTS Calabar
The mobile clinic arrived at PTS Odukpani, Calabar in December 2024
UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya
What makes the story of Police Training School Calabar's medical unit is the character of the commitment, dedication, and resilience of the people who kept it running despite the challenges. CSP Onyi, SP Omini, and a third medical officer run the facility on 24-hour rotational shifts all week. When recruits are in training, they extend their responsibilities further, stepping out of the clinic and into the parade ground and classrooms to offer first aid training as part of the recruits' curriculum.
They are, in the most direct sense, teaching recruits to do what they themselves embody every day: show up, serve, and attend to the person in front of you regardless of the time or the circumstances.
When the UNDP Team arrived at PTS Calabar, SP Omini was in the middle of a procedure.
"There was a lady involved in a road traffic accident. She was brought in a pool of her blood. We got her treated, sutured the wound, and dressed it. This morning, as they came, they met the lady. I was removing sutures."
The mobile clinic arrived at PTS Odukpani, Calabar, as part of the December 2024 handover of ten units deployed across police training institutions nationwide under the UNDP Nigeria’s flagship Police Reform support to the Nigeria Police Force. Its impact was immediate, and it operated on multiple levels simultaneously.
The first and most urgent change was uninterrupted power. The clinic came with its own dual independent power sources (solar and a gasoline-powered generating set), the only reliable electricity source on the school compound, due to a disruption of the power line in Odukpani because of road construction. That one provision cascaded into a series of clinical capabilities that had not previously existed.
The clinic came with its own dual independent power sources
UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya
"In cases of emergency that need resuscitation, the deployment of this mobile clinic has boosted our strength by giving us oxygen and nebulisers. That helps us in emergency management, except if it is a case we cannot manage — then we refer to Calabar Police Hospital, where our medical doctor operates from." - SP Ofem Omini.
"Even at night, I remember what we were passing through the other way. Most times, we ended up using a torchlight. Now we can attend to emergencies here. We have had sudden collapses at night. When that happens, we bring them here administer medical attention." CSP Mary Onyi, Officer in Charge (OIC), Medical Facility, PTS Calabar.
For SP Omini, the additional equipment transformed the scope of what his team could treat on-site before making the decision to refer to the police hospital in Calabar town. The test of any health facility is not its equipment inventory. It is what happens when someone walks through the door in a crisis. At PTS Odukpani, Calabar, that test has been run multiple times since the mobile clinic arrived — and each time, the outcome has been different from what it would have been before December 2024.
About a week before the visit, a driver was attacked at a roadside checkpoint and struck with a bottle by thugs. Soldiers at the checkpoint, aware that the clinic existed, brought him directly to the facility. SP Omini sutured and dressed the wound on-site. The soldiers took him back. No transfer to Calabar town was required. In communities like Odukpani, where the Police Training School is located, the police medical team is often the first line of response in any emergency. "We attended to the driver, got the wound sutures, and dressed it, before the soldiers took him back."
With support from the Federal Government of Germany and UNDP, a cottage hospital is under construction on the Police Training School Odukpani premises; a development that CSP Mary Onyi describes with the kind of measured excitement that comes from someone who has spent six years imagining what proper infrastructure would make possible: theatre capacity, maternity services, male and female wards, and facilities for surgical cases that currently require a transfer to Calabar.
"It will be open to the general public. I have already contacted the National coordinator of Primary Healthcare in this local area to enable the upcoming Cottage hospital to get recognised as a site."
The mobile clinic, in this context, was not the destination. It was the bridge- the intervention that demonstrated what was possible, built institutional confidence, and created the foundation on which the cottage hospital will build. A case of one investment enabled the next. There is a principle at the heart of the Supporting Police Accountability and Transformation (SPAAT) framework that extends beyond operational efficiency.
"To the government of Germany, I want to say we are deeply grateful, and to UNDP, coming to support what we do here, we are actually grateful. It gives us a well-organised environment. At the same time, it gives us morale to do our best." She did not stop at thanks. She made a commitment.
"Whatever structures are given to us, we will try our best to maintain them and use them to the benefit of the Nigeria Police Force and the nation at large."
When the monitoring team arrived at PTS Odukpani, Calabar, they found SP Omini mid-procedure, sutures coming out of a healing patient. CSP Onyi was already planning the next phase. Nobody had prepared for the visit. There was nothing to prepare. The work had not stopped.
Related
content
content
