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Okiro explains police retirements, recruitment, promotions, others

By Editor
10 October 2016   |   1:25 am
The chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Sir Michael Okiro, has explained the compulsory serve retirement of 21 Assistant Inspectors General (AIGs) who still have two or more years to.
Mike Okiro

Mike Okiro

The chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Sir Michael Okiro, has explained the compulsory serve retirement of 21 Assistant Inspectors General (AIGs) who still have two or more years to.

He was speaking in an interview where he also explained the process for and reasons for new recruitments as well as other issues.

He said the disengagement was not a loss to the Federal Government because the experience they had acquired was enough to train the junior officers.

His words: “In the police it is not like some other civil service. The armed forces for example. In the appointment of Inspectors General (IGs) or service chief, many considerations come into place. One, you look at the experience of officers, where they come from, the federal character issue will always taking into consideration, e.g, you cannot appoint senior service chiefs from one state and senior officers of the police from the same state, They look into your qualification and where you come from. So, if somebody is picked, maybe an AIG as IG, there are so many other considerations; it’s not like the civil servant. Well, I don’t know much about the civil service. It happens in the Nigeria armed forces. Once you pick an officer all the senior ones are retired.

Asked about his major challenges and achievements since he assumed office in June 2013 as the PSC’s chairman, he remarked: “My major challenge which am still tackling around now is promotion. I found out that many officers have not been promoted for more than 13 years, not because they are not doing there job very well or because nobody wants to promote them, but because of the system. Let me give you an example. Since 1999 when democracy came into place, we have about 20, 000, but now they are about 300, 000 and with this large number of police the structure is still the same. We serve the same 36 states plus Abuja making 37 states; the same number of area commands in the same three senatorial districts per state.

“So there is a problem, officers have increased but the positions have not increased. There are no positions for them to be area commanders. You cannot promote someone from CSP to commissioner without providing position for them. You can’t remove somebody from commissioner of police without giving him a position, you can make a C.S.P a commissioner of police but you also have to move the former one about. So what we are trying to do is if we can expand the scope and structure.

Okiro retired as IGP in July 24, 2009 when he was60 years old.

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