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Many issues contributed to the intervention of the government and the Police Service Commission (PSC), which resulted in the police sliding backwards in the most retrogressive manner, amid bad blood.
When I was appointed on June 13, 2013, as chairman, PSC, I observed that the Nigeria Police Force had not carried out any recruitment for five years and had lost 5,900 police officers to retirement, death, dismissal, etcetera, with no replacement during this period. Many police stations and outposts were closed down due to lack of manpower and police performance dwindled regrettably.
While the Nigerian population was on the increase, unemployment soaring, urban cities and rural areas expanding, the Nigeria Police was shrinking. Very sad indeed!
I wrote to the government and made a passionate appeal; the government responded and we were allowed to recruit 10,000 police officers and provided fund for the exercise. The strength of PSC was about 460 personnel and there was no way we could have carried out the exercise in 774 local government areas and over 1,500 police stations, simultaneously, across the country. So, we appealed to the IGP, and the exercise was carried out in conjunction with the police, successfully.
Unfortunately, many Nigerian politicians do not know where to draw the line, how and when to distinguish the police and security from politics. Hence, we are where we find ourselves presently in the scheme of things. When the current government of President Muhammadu Buhari came on board, I wrote for the recruitment of another 10,000 personnel. Some partisan politicians came up with the notion that, since the members of the PSC were appointed by the erstwhile government (PDP), allowing them continue with the recruitment would be tantamount to them to recruiting 10,000 PDP members into the police force. These people simply forgot about the fluidity in the movement of Nigerian politicians among political parties. They have ostensively moved from Party ‘A’ to ‘B’, to ‘C’, etcetera, and back to ‘A’, ‘B,’ etcetera. They forgot also that Nigerian public servants obey AGIP (Any Government In Power).
Unexpectedly, government considered the recruitment of 6,000 police Officers and surprisingly sent the approval to the IGP, who did not even apply for it. The same IGP who was suffering from the non-authority of hire-and-fire syndrome that beat his chest ignored the PSC and went ahead with the recruitment.
The PSC reacted by declaring the action of the IGP unconstitutional, null and void, while invoking the Third Schedule, Part 1, Section 30(a) (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As amended), and Section 6(1)(a) of the Police Service Commission (Established) Act, 2001. The issue of semantic similarity or differences between recruitment and appointment came into focus and linguists, language experts, etymologists and lawyers were brought in. What a waste of time!
At the end, the PSC won but the IGP refused to release the fund, which was meant for the recruitment exercise domiciled with him. That marked the beginning of the recruitment imbroglio between the IGP and the PSC.
When I finished my tenure in the PSC and left, another chairman came in, so did a new IGP. The issue of recruitment came up again and the controversy resurfaced, compelling them to go to court. Both parties degenerated to very mean levels, whereby the IGP decided to withdraw all the operational vehicles he allocated to the PSC and the PSC, in retaliation, refused to act on letters of retirement, promotion, and posting of state command commissioners of police from the IGP.
Thereafter, I had to convene a meeting of the Former IGPs’ Forum, and the IGP and the chairman of the PSC were invited. We decided that the recurring decimal of confrontation should stop and, since they were in court, whatever the court decided should be recognized as a judicial precedent and obeyed by the parties without appeal.
The IGP left office, giving way to a new one, and the issue of recruitment disagreement woke up again. If this is left unchecked, it will turn into a ding-dong affair.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice needs to advice the Federal Government appropriately, if he has not done so, to enable government take a stand and avoid two government agencies dissipating energies on an issue that should have been settled long ago.
•Sir Mike Mbama Okiro, former Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police Force
(Concluded)
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Are bandits upgrading their game? (1)
When Boko Haram became domiciled in Maiduguri, Borno State, their tactics were not subjected to intense security scrutiny. In fact, virtually all the security agencies were oblivious of the sect’s strategies, and their laxity caused these agencies collateral damage in human and material resources. The country started bleeding and peace eluded the affected areas, as local governments in the state started falling into the hands of the sect, whose activities gave them away as terrorists.
Soon, they embarked on abducting civilian targets as human shields. Hundreds of innocent men and women were abducted and these include students, traders, farmers and traditional rulers. Before there was a change of baton in government in 2015, which urshered in the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, 11 local government areas were already captured, including hundreds of students of Chibok community. The country was really bleeding, but the appointment of a “saviour,” General Tukur Buratai, as the Chief of Army Staff, and his consequent drafting of Major General Lucky Irabor as the head of Operation Lafia Dole turned the tide.
The change in operational strategy by Buratai and planning at the headquarters and Irabor implementing and executing the strategies at the war front eventually brought succour, as all the occupied local governments were recaptured by the gallant Nigerian troops, including the terrorists’ operational headquarters Sambisa.
Suddenly, there was a twist of events as politicians at the federal level started intervening in every security game plan, and that was how “water entered the thick okro soup. Security plans got leaked to hands of enemies of the state, because politicians were having inroads into every security plan and these were leaking into the enemy’s camp. This caused a lot of casualties. This writer experienced one of such incidents. The troops’ war plan was intercepted and a security movement to Gwoza was intercepted and the enemy grounded an armored vehicle, killing all the troops in the carrier. However, the same politicians instigated the public and there was strong call for the reshuffling of the Service Chiefs. Before then, the Federal Government had boasted of having information on alledged persons sponsoring terror in the country.
(To be continued)
