Posted by By AMOS DUNIA AND OLUWOLE AKINBOYEWA, Abuja on
The Police Service Commission on Thursday put a seal on the demotion exercise it carried out last week on 140 senior police officers, including former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who was demoted from Assistant Inspector General of police to Deputy Commissioner of Police, saying they were beneficiaries of an illegal exercise.
The Police Service Commission on Thursday put a seal on the demotion exercise it carried out last week on 140 senior police officers, including former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who was demoted from Assistant Inspector General of police to Deputy Commissioner of Police, saying they were beneficiaries of an illegal exercise.
Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Parry Osayande, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Police Affairs with members of the Commission, said that the law does not follow the path of sentiment or morality, adding that based on the provisions of the Police Service Act and the Constitution, neither the Inspector General of Police nor the President is in any particular time empowered to promote officers of the police force.
Mr. Osayande further said that even if the promotions were directed or effected by the President, the Police Service Commission under his Chairmanship would have reversed it since they were carried out illegally, stressing that the commission is desirous to uphold the rule of law and to sanitize the system, adding that a situation whereby an officer is made to jump over two thousand of his seniors to earn promotion owing to favour should not be encouraged.
According to him: 'Promotion is based on merit and seniority. Can we subsume the over three hundred thousand policemen for the interest of just 140 that got illegal promotion? The answer is no. A situation whereby some junior officers jumped over 2,000 of their senior to get promotion should not be encouraged or allowed.'
The Chairman of the PSC stressed that based on the law that set up the Commission, it is not subject to the authority, dictate or control of any other body or office, stressing that in that wise, the former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindaro, was not in a position to carry out what he did not have since the law does not in any way recognize him as a member of the Commission neither was he ever given the power to act on behalf of the PSC.
Also speaking, the Secretary to the PSC and Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Police Affairs, Mallam Garba Buwai, said that in the absence of the Police Service Commission in place, he wrote to the former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ehindaro, drawing his attention to the illegality he embarked upon by way of promotion, but was ignored by the former police chief who claimed that the promotion was based on a memo he forwarded to the president but which he could present before the Commission when asked for a copy.
Mallam Buwai also said that the former Inspector General of Police also carried out illegal retirement of ten thousand police officers in the name of rationalization saying that the Commission has also commenced the process of recalling the sack officers after going through some procedures adding that only the Police Service Commission is mandated and responsible for the promotion, demotion and retirement of police officers.
In his own statement before the senate Committee, Deputy inspector General of Police Mr. Ogbonnanya Onovo who stood in for the Inspector General of Police, said that since he enlisted into the Police force over 30 years ago, every officer knows when he is due for promotion just as every officer equally knows his seniors.
Mr. Onovo noted that the promotions carried out by the former IGP brought about indiscipline, bad blood just as it demoralized some senior officers whose juniors were elevated above them saying that the role of the Police Service Commission is very well defined thus the Commission did the right thing by correcting a grave mistake of the past.
In his own comment, a member of the Senate Committee Senator tank Ayuba, a retired Brigadier-General of the Nigeria Army commended the PSC for what it described as 'bold action' saying that it would have been dangerous to allow such a promotion to hold as it has the potential of affecting the structure of the Police force