Police recruitment: Why we went to court – PSC

By Nicholas Kalu, Abuja

Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Musliu Smith, said they went to court over the recruitment of constables into the Nigeria Police because they had to protect the Commission’s mandate, as well as the provisions of the constitution of the country.

Smith, a retired Inspector General of Police, disclosed that funding for the litigation was not from government coffers but that the Commissioners of the PSC taxed themselves for it.

He said this while contributing at a public hearing on the proposed Bill for an Act to repeal the Police Service Commission (Establishment) Act 2001 and enact the Police Service Commission Act, 2020, organized by the House Committee on Police Affairs on Thursday.

The PSC had in 2019 taken the Inspector General Police and others to the Federal High Court in Abuja last year over the recruitment of 10,000 police constables into the Force. The court had ruled in the defendants’ favour saying it was the duty of the IGP to carry out the recruitment.

The Commission had headed for the Court of Appeal, which on September 30, 2020, overturned the lower court’s decision, saying it was the Commission’s responsibility, thereby nullifying the ongoing process of the recruitment into the Force. The IGP had headed for the Supreme Court after that.

Smith said based on the Court of Appeal judgment delivered on the 30th of September, 2020 in a matter between the Police Service Commission vs the Nigeria Police Force and three others with number CA/A/84/2020, the appellate court had held that the word appointment and recruitment mean the same thing.

He said, “The court held further at page 51 of the judgment as follows, “I have no doubt in my mind that the provisions of the Public Service Rules (2008 edition) are very much applicable to this case. The word recruitment is inclusive in the process leading up to appointment of persons in the Public Service of the Federation to which the Nigeria Police Force belongs. The word “appointment” encompasses the word “recruitment”.

“In other words, by the combined provisions of Section 152 (1) and (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, paragraph 30 (a) and (b), part 1 of the Third Schedule to the Constitution and Sections 6 and 24 of the Police Service Commission (Establishment) Act 2001, all of which are very clear and unambiguous. There is no doubt that the power to appoint persons to offices (other than the office of the Inspector-General of Police) in the Nigeria Police Force includes power to enlist, recruit constables into the Nigeria Police Force.”

He said based on this part of Section 6(1) of the Act which reads “…and the responsibility for the recruitment of recruit constables into the Nigeria Police Force and recruit cadets into the Nigeria Police Academy shall be the duty of the Inspector-General of Police” should be deleted.

He said the PSC and the Office of the Inspector General of Police should work closely to always have a smooth recruitment process.

The PSC chairman also called for proper funding of the commission to enable it carry out its responsibilities efficiently.

Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Digyaddi, said given the controversial nature of the issue, he would suggest that since the matter is currently pending at the Supreme Court of Nigeria, “it may not be wise to make into law at this stage.”

“It will appear to be preempting the decision of the Supreme Court on the matter. I’m therefore suggesting that we should leave the matter for now as it is while we await the decision of the Supreme Court,” he said.

Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, was against suggestions that the chairmen of the Commission should exclude retired police officers, saying such would be discriminatory.

“Putting a clause to say that a retired police officer or retired Inspector General of Police should not head the place, it would be discriminatory and would set a bad precedent. Other organizations would take to that. But maybe a phrase they could put there so a technocrat, someone that has experience and the rest of it. I know for sure that PSC is not an ordinary place. It is a technical place that one needs to understand the workings of the police for you to be able to have oversight functions for the police,” he said.