Promotion of Police Officers: Ohanaeze accuses FG of marginalising Igbo

By Vincent Kalu

Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has condemned the recent promotion exercise carried out by the Nigerian Police Force, where 37 officers were promoted to the rank of commissioners of police, and called for a revisit of the exercise.

In a press statement signed by Chief Emeka Attamah, special adviser on Media to the President General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, expressed dissatisfaction over the imbalance and marginalisation against the zone in the promotion exercise, where the Igbo got only one slot in the commissioner of police category.

The statement reads in part: “A cursory look at the list shows that North West zone has 12 new commissioners of police; North East, eight; South West seven; South- South five; North Central, four; while predictably Southeast brought up the rear with just one new commissioner.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo observes that the already existing imbalance in the force exemplified in the fact that all police commissioners in the Southeast come from the North and not many Igbo officers are in the high echelon of the force should have made it imperative that more slots be given to the Southeast.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo is irked that the already depleted Southeast population in the force deserved only one slot and unequivocally condemns and rejects this provocative act of marginalisation.