She speaks in an interview on the application of the federal character principle in promotions and appointments in the Nigeria Police Force, politics of recruitment, among other fundamental issues the board contended with;
What is your reaction to allegations that some police officers that were retired or dismissed from service were recalled and promoted above others?
It is not true, and I will tell you how it is done. Police Service Commission obeys every court order.
If such policemen, who were dismissed, go to court and get judgement, and same is served on the commission and the police, and the commission verifies the order and finds that it is genuine, we do not disobey such orders.
The police are a disciplined force: the police service commission will never disobey any court order.
In fact, most times, when we reinstate, for instance, when an officer has been away for 10 years, and when the Police Service Commission reinstates, it does so and retires immediately.
This means that for those 10 years, pay the person’s salaries and allowances, and at times, will (the court) order you to promote this person to the bank, or to be at par with his colleagues.
We usually do that. But, most times, we retire immediately. We say this person has lost touch with the police.
If you go and check, all the accounts of the Police Service Commission are garnisheed; it is because of court orders.
Then we cannot pay as the Police Service Commission is so poor and the force headquarters cannot pay, the accounts are garnisheed over such issues.
Once cases beyond four years have not gone to court, and they are not handled, we say it is time-barred.
What were the challenges the commission encountered, and what are your suggestions to make it deliver on its mandate?
The first challenge I see there is funding. The Police Service Commission, just like the police, is poorly funded.
The commission doesn’t have money. The commissioners have no offices, the staff of the commission are scattered all around the Federal Secretariat.
Many of them have no chairs to sit on, no tables. Some of them are going blind in their offices because such offices are so dark.
Also, given the sensitive work that staff of the commission do, I think their welfare is very poor. They are poorly paid. In fact, they suffer the same challenges as the police itself.
Our policemen and women work very hard, but are poorly paid. They are the least paid in the whole of West Africa. The Force headquarters is helpless.
The money budgeted for the police, for instance, I don’t think more than one quarter of that money, is released to them.
The Inspector General of Police(IGP) is trying, but the budget of the police is small, which is why the governors think that they should control the police.
In most states, the governors have the police commissioners in their pockets because they give them (commissioners) money to buy fuel and take care of others logistics.
What is your take on the clamour for state police?
I am totally against state police, because we are seeing what we are seeing, when the governors are not in charge of the police.
When they are in charge of the police, they may bar some people from entering their states.
Look at what is happening between the governor of Kano State and his predecessor. You can imagine when it is state police.
So, you can now imagine when you say you have state police. May be in future, we can, but for now, I don’t think Nigeria is ripe for state police, because it will be abused by governors.
There are allegations that some of the newly-promoted officers paid as much as N2 million as bribe to members of your board to get promotions. What is your reaction to that?
My reaction is that those that are making these allegations are beneath contempt.
They are those that judge others by their standards. Let me talk about this recruitment because they mentioned a few people. It’s very disheartening to me.
I was on the board of the commission for 10 years, having been reappointed after my first five years.
Perhaps, they do not know that it is the job of the Police Service Commission to promote, discipline, post and recruit.
Let me start with promotion; I think they are ignorant of the fact that the commission does not wake up and give anybody promotions, unless such persons have been recommended to the commission by the Inspector General of Police, who is in charge of operations.
Being in charge of operations, he knows his men. He knows those who merit promotion and those who do not.
So, that is the problem that those who are making these allegations have. And, they don’t know the process of promotion. From the force headquarters it goes through the directorate.
Any policeman who says he paid any amount of money to either the IGP to send his or her name to the Police Service Commission or to either the chairman or to any commissioner should please do this country a favour by coming out to say `yes, I paid to so and so person, and these are my witnesses.’
When they make such allegations, they make members of the police force unhappy.
These allegations are usually made by those who know that they don’t merit promotion.
Will the rumoured tumbling not affect productivity and cause bad blood in the Force?
Why are they pointing accusing fingers at the Police Service Commission? They know police law.
In fact, I advocate the removal of federal character in the police completely.
At the point of recruitment, do federal character, but thereafter, don’t do any federal character. Promote policemen based on their performance.
If they take their exams and pass, promote them. If they fail, let them stay on that rank of their incompetence. You cannot see people that entered the same day and you say you are doing federal character and you promote them and leave the others.
That was what affected the police. You cannot say because this person is from State A and has performed so well, but he cannot be promoted because this person from State B has not performed well.
When you do federal character during promotion, you cheat some states. That is the basis of the crisis in the police. So, let policemen rise based on their performance.
Why did the police commission base the last two recruitment exercises on local government basis as against the provisions of the Federal Character Principle, which stipulates proportional representation?
That was not the first recruitment the commission had done. It had been involved in all these things.
Before, it was based on states. Some of other recruitments I had been involved in were based on federal character.
But, the last two recruitments like you said, for constables only, not for Assistant Superintendents of Police (ASPs) and Inspectors were based on federal character, not local governments.
But, it is not that it was the Police Service Commission that took that decision alone. You also consider the National Assembly, the presidency will come in, minister of interior will come in.
They said because of the problem of insecurity in the country, because of the need for community policing and all that, that the recruitment should be based on local governments.
The one that we did now, we said seven per local government. So, you multiply seven by the number of local governments in each state.
But, they said it was because of community policing; that’s fine. But, I think that policy should be looked into to give everybody a sense of belonging.
Having come from the South East, some people have called and abused me many times because of this federal character.
They say you will be there and we will not get state command posting. I know that it is the job of the Police Service Commission to approve postings, but I don’t know how many times the commission had been involved in the posting of commissioners.
I know it comes to us, but before it comes to us, the Inspector General of Police, who is in charge of operations would have allocated to the states.
And, the danger for the commission is that, if we say it shouldn’t be, if anything goes wrong in that state, they would say the IGP, who is in charge of operations knows his men, but the Police Service Commission said no.
Usually, once the IGP has put somebody like that and sends to the commission, it is very rare that we say `no.` Based on this federal character principle, I think two months ago, I protested at the commission; I said when the chips are down, I’m from somewhere.
How come, in the whole of thirty six states, and Abuja, we had only two commissioners of police from the whole of South-East holding command position?
I said it when the former commissioner in Imo State was removed.
It remains only the commissioner of Police in Borno State. So, the whole of South-East is represented by only one commissioner of Police that holds a state command.
When my people called me, I said it is not the problem of the Police Service Commission.
The IGP knows his men, but I think there should be a little balancing.
Source:New Telegraph
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