THE Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has rejected the list of Constables submitted by the Police Service Commission (PSC) over alleged corruption and irregularities in the ongoing 2022/23 Police Constables Recruitment Exercise.
This development was disclosed in a statement issued on Saturday, June 15, and signed by the force spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi.
The PSC recently released a list of 10,000 successful applicants for constable and specialist cadre roles in the NPF.
The Force dissociated itself from the recent list of successful candidates published by the PSC and called for a review.
According to the Police, the announcement became necessary upon being inundated with a series of complaints and allegations of corruption raised by unsuspecting candidates and stakeholders on the irregularities that marred the exercise especially the disappearance of the names of screened candidates who were successful in the last stage.
The NPF said upon scrutiny of the list released on the PSC portal, it discovered the following:
- Several names of persons purported to be names of successful candidates are those who did not even apply and therefore did not take part in the recruitment exercise.
- The published list contains several names of candidates who failed either the Computer Based Test (CBT) the physical screening exercise or both.
- Some made it to the last stage of the exercise but were disqualified having been found medically unfit through the standardised medical test but they also made the list of successful candidates as published by the PSC.
- Most worrisome is the allegation of financial dealings and corrupt practices leading to the outcome where unqualified and untrainable individuals have been shortlisted.
Adejobi added that the Inspector General of Police (IGP) had on June 10, 2024, written a letter of objection to the list addressed to the Chairman of the Commission, citing the discoveries listed above.
According to the Police, the reaction of the IGP was without prejudice to the power of the Commission to recruit for the police as ruled by the Supreme Court but this power does not include the power to recruit unqualified and untrained individuals for the police.
Adejobi noted that it is the Police that bears the brunt of the recruitment of unqualified individuals and not the PSC.
“The same people who recruited anyhow for the Police today will turn around to accuse the police tomorrow of inefficiency when their recruits start messing up.
“The Police therefore has since dissociated itself from the published list and called for a review that will be transparent and credible,” the NPF stated.
According to the Police, the PSC after the pronouncement of the Supreme Court ruling on the powers of the Commission to recruit on behalf of the Police, constituted a Joint Recruitment Board, to be headed by one of the Commissioners of the PSC, with the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Training and Development in the Police Force as its Secretary.
“But surprisingly, the Board was crippled and never allowed to carry out its mandate, insomuch that even the final list was not consented to by the Board,” the statement added.
The NPF said it takes exception to the development and calls for a total review of the process to recruit qualified, competent, trainable, and productive hands into the Force.
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