PSC and the police again

Idowu Akinlotan

How peace can be restored between the Police Service Commission and the Nigeria Police Force should preoccupy the minds of senior officials of the Buhari presidency in the weeks ahead.

The cold war between the two organisations, both creations of the constitution, flared in September when the PSC took the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to court to get an interpretation of who has the final say over the recruitment of 10,000 police constables. But the court case merely brought into the open a furtive and probably long-standing struggle between the two organs regarding precedence. The case is yet to be decided, but the cold war continues.

Fortunately for everyone, the PSC has stuck to its guns and is forcing into the open a number of salient issues concerning the running of the Police Force and the need to urgently get an interpretation of the powers of the two institutions.

While the cold war was still simmering, the PSC again took the police authorities to task over the deployment of Commissioners of Police in the 36 states of the country. The PSC had in late October asked the IGP to follow certain procedures in the deployment of police commissioners, indicating that the PSC must have an input in the selection and deployment of the officers. The police reportedly ignored the PSC request, thus setting the stage for another round of disagreement between the two organs.

At the centre of the dispute is the interpretation of the functions and powers of the PSC as enshrined in Part II, Section 6 of the Police Service Commission (Establishment, etc) Act 2001, particularly subsection (a) which tasks the PSC with the responsibility of “the appointment and promotion of persons to offices (other than the office of the Inspector-General of Police) in the Nigeria Police Force”.

If the federal government finds it difficult to resolve the misunderstanding between the PSC and the police, and cannot prevail on the police to be transparent in deploying officers and performing their functions, perhaps a bill to the National Assembly scrapping the PSC would not be out of order. The police, it seems, want to act completely independently