Chairman, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Senator Abu Ibrahim, Thursday said that the proposed recruitment of 10,000 police personnel by the Federal Government was suspended due to sharp disagreement over the criteria for the recruitment.
Senator Ibrahim told reporters in Abuja while some stakeholders wanted local government areas to be the basis for the recruitment exercise; others insisted that equality of states should serve as the basis for the exercise.
The Katsina South lawmaker said that there were also some legal impediments to the exercise.
He noted that some people felt that the police should recruit from Inspectorate cadre downwards while the Police Service Commission should issue letters of appointment to the recruits.
He said that the issues had not been fully resolved hence the temporary suspension of the recruitment exercise.
Ibrahim who said that President Muhammadu Buhari, has already intervened in the disagreement assured that within a week the issue would be resolved.
He noted that there was no truth in the speculation that the National Assembly wanted to take over the recruitment.
He said, “Honestly, it (recruitment exercise) has to be suspended for two obvious reasons. First, everybody knows that it was agreed that this recruitment must be done per local government.
“The reason for that is that we are poised to give emphasis to community policing. The local governments are the smallest recognised units by the constitution. So nine (recruits) per local government, they will form the nucleus for this community policing per local government.
“The obstacle was equal per state. Some people felt that it is not representative of federal character.
“I asked them what about what is happening in the National Assembly, in which the number of person per state in the House of Representatives is by the size of the local governments of that state, why the Senate is by equality of state.
“But even that is not the main argument. The main argument is that the police is divided into divisional units under a Divisional Police Officer (DPO).. Most of these DPO are current with the local government areas.
“Therefore, if the police want the recruitment to be based on local governments, they are right because the smallest units are the Divisional Police Units (DPU).
Now, the commission somehow decided differently, and police also decided differently. So that is the first issue. The second issue is the issue of
“There is even this legal aspect that the police should recruit from Inspectors downwards, and the commission approves and gives letters of appointment.
“This is another area of conflict.
“But the president has intervened and probably, within the next one week, final decision will be taken on what should be done.
“But the main issues are these disagreements. Police say it is per local government, while the commission says it should be per state.
“And we are saying the recruitment should be per local government for the recruits and the rank and files, while the officers should be equality per state.
“This is because the officers’ cadres go anywhere, but these rank and files, we want them to remain in their communities to form the nucleus of community policing.
“So these are very serious disagreement that we have seen and the president has now waded in.
“They are going to find us a position that we are going to take on this recruitment.
“I hear some rumours that the National Assembly wants to take over the recruitment. How can we do that?
“Those who don’t want this thing to go on are saying it is against federal character, which kind of federal character when we are talking of community policing.
“After all, the DPUs are they based on federal character. It is by size and population. And there is even a requirement of thirty thousand persons per police officer.
“That is not true, how can we take over when we are not part of the executive. And does he take instruction from me.
“I told him my reservations and advised him that he should suspend it until these things are sorted out.
“The National Assembly cannot do the recruitment but we have interest on how it is done. That is part of our oversight function. It is not correct, it is just rumour.
“How can you do community policing if for example, a state like Bayelsa with eight local governments you give them 240 policemen and Kano with forty four local governments, you give them two hundred and forty policemen.
“How can they have community policing because there in Bayelsa, they will have 30 policemen per local government but in Kano they will have five or four per local government.
“Is it the samething. And this community policing is something that will save Nigerian police because we believe that if we have community policing, people will be more committed.
“There will be less corruption, synergy between the people in the area will be much better and they will be much better to fight crime.
“So, it did not just come out of the blues that it should be based on local governments’ basis.”
