THE Joint Union Congress (JUC) of the Police Service Commission (PSC) has dismissed allegations of fraud and irregularities levelled against the PSC and its staff by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
The PSC recently released a list of 10,000 successful applicants for constable and specialist cadre roles in the NPF.
But the NPF in a statement issued on Saturday, June 15, signed by the force spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, rejected the list over alleged corruption and irregularities.
The two organisations have since been at loggerheads over the list.
At a press conference on Wednesday, June 19, chaired by the chairman of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, PSC, Unit Adoyi Adoyi, the union insisted that the 2022/23 police constables recruitment exercise was transparent.
According to Adoyi, who doubles as the JUC’s chairman, the allegations of fraud and several other unwholesome acts levelled against the PSC and its staff are “unfounded, spurious, speculative and most irresponsible, especially by the way the allegations were thrown into the public space, even before official channel of communication for dealing with such a matter was exhaustively explored.”
The union said the PSC and Police were both responsible agencies of the federal government that should demonstrate integrity to inspire public trust and confidence in the discharge of their respective mandates.
The union described the action of the PSC as a “sinister resort to media trial and subterranean plot to achieve a clandestine motive.”
It condemned the Police’s action, describing it is most unwarranted.
“We vehemently reject the allegation of fraud by the Nigeria Police authorities in the recruitment exercise. As public servants committed to due process, we do not take the allegations kindly because we are fully conscious of its implications. We, therefore, wish to address the allegation directly.
“It is now common knowledge that the Nigeria Police Force, which is lacking in personnel and facing serious challenges in combating insecurity in the country today, has chosen to abandon its core mandate and instead seeks to interfere with the constitutional mandate of the Police Service Commission,” the union stated.
According to them, they have been furnished with reliable information indicating that elements within the Police Force attempted to smuggle over 1,000 names into the recruitment list.
The union claimed there had been a leadership vacuum at the Commission its chairman, Solomon Arase was “unceremoniously stripped of office” which it claimed put the Commission in disarray.
It called for a forensic review of the commission’s list and the recruitment list with the Police.
A reporter with the ICIR
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