Why South-East is shortchanged in police top hierarchy promotion —Okiro

THE chairman of Police Service Commission (PSC), Mr. Mike Okiro, has said   the Federal Character principle has been behind the shortchanging  of the South East Police officers  in their promotion  to the top hierarchy of  the Nigeria Police Force.

The former Inspector-General of Police who spoke in Onitsha during the 15years marriage anniversary of a human rights activist, Dede Uzor A. Uzor, said the strict application of federal character principle in the promotion of top police officers  in the Police has reduced the chances of the officers from the zone  from being promoted to the top echelon of Police.

The South East has constantly complained  that  the zone has  been marginalized in the promotion of  its top officers of Nigerian Police  and that when they reluctantly promoted few of them, they were  not given opportunity to man strategic command position.

For instance, out of  24 Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), none is from South East,  while out of about 90 Commissioners of Police  believed to be the nucleus  of the force, only about six are  of  South East extraction.

A Police source who don’t want to be quoted for fear of persecution of accused Okiro of being economical with the truth because if the Federal Character Principle was adhered to strictly, the South East will get at least four AIGs and about 15 Commissioners of Police.

But Okiro whose PSC was charged with the recruitment, promotion and discipline  of officers from Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) to Deputy Inspector-General (DIG), insisted that in the promotion of officers the Commission strictly comply with the provision of Federal Character principle, denying that some ethnic  nationalities were   marked out for marginalization in such exercises.

He also gave reasons why his Commission was   yet to release the list of 10,000 Police officers recruited in compliance with President Buhari’s directive  when he assumed office.

Okiro said the provision for the emolument of the 10,000 Policemen to be recruited  was not made in the 2015 budget, so there was no money to take care of the remuneration if they were  engaged, saying that it is now that it   would be included in the  2017 budget.

The chairman said the Commission has completed everything regarding their selection including aptitude test, screening and other relevant exercise.