THE recent report released by Office of Auditor General of the Federation (OAGF) shows that 17,558 officers of the Nigeria Police Force have future dates of employment.
The report titled ‘OAuGF Annual Report on Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weakness Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)’ was signed by the Auditor-General for the Federation Aghughu Adolphus on September 15, 2021.
The report also states that there are non-valid dates of births for officers of the force on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS).
The OAGF report alleges that 405 officers were employed into the Nigeria Police Force before their dates of births.
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It also indicted the Nigeria Police of employing persons under the age of 18 into the Nigeria force.
According to the report, a review of the Nominal Roll of the Nigeria Police Force shows that 74 of their officers are under the age of 18.
This, the OAGF says, contravenes Paragraph 020205 (a) of the Public Service Rules (PSR), which states that “to be eligible for appointment into the Federal Public Service, every applicant must not be less than 18 years and not more than 50 years of age.”
The report also states that the employment of more than 17,000 police officers is in contrast with the Public Service Rules 020108, which states that “date of birth recorded on appointment by an officer shall not be changed throughout the career of the officer. Any contravention shall be regarded as an act of serious misconduct.”
The report further notes that the contraventions have caused loss of funds to the Federal Government through input errors or payroll fraud.
“There is loss of funds to the FGN through input errors or even payroll fraud thus defeating two major objectives of the IPPIS of the elimination of payroll fraud by the multiple payments of emolument to a single employee, as seen in the various instances in the Appendix;
“And enhancing confidence in the process of determining staff emolument costs, loss of data integrity due to inaccuracy and incompleteness of data on the applications that will adversely impact decision making especially the accuracy of annual budgeting for personnel cost,” the report reads in part.
In 2021, The ICIR, through Freedom of Information, requested the data on the number of personnel in the Nigeria Police Force, but it was not honoured.
The requests were sent to the Force Headquarters, Ministry of Police Affairs and the Police Service Commission.
Out of the three FOI requests, only the Ministry of Police Affairs responded but also failed to provide the data.
The Ministry of Police Affairs claimed that the information requested might not be divulged due to security of the country.
“You may wish to note that the information requested for have to do with the security of the Federal republic of Nigeria and may not be divulged carelessly in view of the recent attacks on Police Stations and formations nationwide, This request is accordingly subject to refusal further to Section 11 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act,” the ministry said.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via labolade@icirnigeria.org, on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94