A fresh row between the police authorities and the Police Service Commission (PSC) broke into the open on Saturday after Police Inspector-General Kayode Egbetokun  accused the commission of manipulating the ongoing 2022/23 Police Constables Recruitment Exercise.

Egbetokun slammed the PSC for alleged corruption of the process through smuggling in of names of “candidates who failed either the Computer Based Test (CBT) or the physical screening exercise or both.”

 

The PSC however denied the allegations and dismissed them as not only in bad state but diversionary.

 

It demanded a forensic audit of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board Computer Based Test which the police authorities had queried.

It wondered why “it is only during recruitment exercises that police confrontation manifests, suggesting obvious hidden interests and corrupt tendencies.”

 

The Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, in a statement, said the police had to cry out after they were “inundated with series of complaints and allegations of corruption raised by unsuspecting candidates and stakeholders on the irregularities that marred the exercise.”

 

Adejobi claimed that upon careful scrutiny of the list released on the PSC portal, the police discovered some names of “successful candidates” who did not even apply and therefore did not take part in the recruitment exercise.

 

His words: “The published list contains several names of candidates who failed either the Computer Based Test (CBT) or the physical screening exercise or both.

 

“There are those who made it to the last stage of the exercise but were disqualified, having been found medically unfit through the standardised medical test, but who 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 un-trainable individuals have been shortlisted.”

 

Egbetokun had on June 10, 2024 written a letter of objection on the list addressed to the Chairman of the Commission, citing the discoveries.

 

Adejobi said the reaction of the IGP was without prejudice to the power of the Commission to recruit for the police as confirmed by the Supreme Court in a case between the two sides.

 

But he said this power “does not include the power to recruit unqualified and untrained individuals for the police.”

 

He added that it is the police that bear the brunt of recruitment of unqualified individuals and not the PSC.

 

“The same people who recruited anyhow for the police today will turn round to accuse the police tomorrow of inefficiency when their recruits start messing up,” he said.

The police, according to him, have dissociated themselves from the published list and called for a review that will be transparent and credible.

 

He recalled that the leadership of PSC, as a fallout of the pronouncement of the Supreme Court on the powers of the Commission to recruit for the police, had constituted a Joint Recruitment Board to be headed by a PSC Commissioner 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,” Adejobi said.

 

“The Nigeria Police Force therefore takes exception to this unpleasant development and calls for a total review of the process with a view to recruiting qualified, competent, trainable and productive hands into the Nigeria Police Force, in line with the vision of His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s led administration on police reform.

 

“The NPF hereby reiterates that we are not unconcerned about the plights and ordeals of prospective recruits who have been subjected to all forms of rigorous screening exercise, assuring that it is our commitment to ensure that the process is thoroughly reviewed, stands fruitful and successful for the betterment of the Nigeria Police, and by extension the country.”

 

Credit: thenationonlineng.net