Recruitment: We Can’t Verify Certificates Of 80,724 Shortlisted Applicants

Police officers

The Police Service Commission has said it could not verify the academic credentials of 80,724 applicants shortlisted for employment into the Constable cadre in the Nigeria Police Force.

A report by Punch revealed that the Commission stated that the candidates were shortlisted based on their physical attributes, noting that the verification of their certificates would be done by the West African Examination Council after their admission into police colleges for training.

The Commission’s spokesman, Ikechukwu Ani, in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Wednesday, said successful applicants who were invited to write an aptitude test on Saturday, must have five credit pass including English and Mathematics, to qualify for recruitment.

He explained that the test will hold in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The 80,724 candidates were shortlisted from the 210,150 applicants who applied for the 10,000 police slots. A total of 315,032 online applications were received at the close of the Commission’s recruitment portal on January 11, 2019.

Responding to questions about the number of applicants who failed to meet the academic requirements for the exercise, Ani said, “What we are doing is, we screen the documents and their physical attributes. At this point, we don’t have all it takes to verify certificates, but we look at it and if it looks okay, we pass it.”

He added, “When they (applicants) finally get in, there would be proper scrutiny of the certificates after they get to the (Police) colleges. I think we would write to WAEC to confirm the certificates, but at this point, we are just looking at them (certificates) and the one that is okay, we would pass. The person must have five credit pass including in English and Mathematics.”

The Commission’s spokesman, who is in Anambra State for the exercise, further explained that only those with physical deformities were dropped during the physical screening conducted by the Nigeria Police Force.

He said candidates who passed the aptitude test would also be subjected to medical screening to ascertain their health and fitness for the job.

“The Police handled the physical screening and if you don’t have a flat foot or knock knee and if your results appear fine, then they would pass you to the next level, but the medical screening would be done for those who passed the examination,” Ani noted.

Commenting on the planned recruitment of 40,000 community police officers announced by the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, the PSC spokesman said the Commission was not part of the initiative.

He stated, “There is no meeting where it has been discussed with the Commission; The Commission is not part of it. I don’t have a brief that the Commission is part of it, but I feel the Commission should be part of it.”