The Nigeria Police Force Act, 2020 (Amendment) Bill, 2024 is currently being considered by the National Assembly. From the long title, the Bill seeks the amendment of the Nigeria Police Act, 2020 to achieve the following objectives:

Review the service years of police personnel in order to improve the experience and expertise of the police workforce; Retain experienced personnel and reduce the cost of training and recruiting new officers; 

Improve the morale performance and job satisfaction in the workforce of the Nigerian Police Force; and Address the shortage of experienced police personnel.               

Existing legal order
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is a national police establishment whose existence is affirmed by section 214 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. The legal framework of the NPF is further elaborated by Nigeria Police Act, 2020.

The previous statutory framework was the Police Act first made in 1943 (with subsequent amendments), until its repeal and replacement with the Nigeria Police Act, 2020. The present Bill seeks to amend section 18 of the Nigeria Police Act, 2020 by substituting subsection (8) of the section with the following clause:

“(8) Every police officer shall, on recruitment or appointment, serve in the Nigeria Police Force for 40 years or until he attains the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.”

The existing section 18 (8) of the Nigeria Police Act provides as follows: 
“(8) Every police officer shall, on recruitment or appointment, serve in the Nigeria Police Force for 35 years or until he attains the age of 60 years, whichever is earlier”.

Comment on the proposed amendment
It is clear from the proposed clause (8) that the Bill seeks an increase of five years in the years of service of personnel of the NPF from the current 35 years of service years to 40 years, or from 60 years of age to 65 years of age. This proposal, if accepted, will create special retirement service years or age for police officers different from the general norm in the civil/public service, including personnel of sister security services, which is 35 years of service or 60 years of age.

The justifications for the proposed increase appear not to be well articulated. From the long title of the Bill, the justifications given are: a) to improve the experience and expertise of the police workforce; b) to retain experienced personnel and reduce the cost of training and recruiting new officers; c) to improve the morale performance and job satisfaction in the workforce of the Nigerian Police Force; and d) to address the shortage of experienced police personnel.

With the greatest respect to the sponsors of the Bill, none of these grounds can justify an increase in the service years of police personnel as proposed by the Bill. This view is premised on the following grounds:

Improvement in experience and expertise
The recruitment age limit into the Nigeria Police Force is between ages 18-25 years. If a police personnel is recruited at 18 years, that personnel would retire at 53 years of age after 35 years of service. If recruited at 25 years, the personnel would retire at 60 years of age after 35 years. Surely, the period of 1-35 years is more than sufficient for the police personnel to have gained sufficient experience and expertise to effectively perform the duties of a police personnel before retirement.

In any event, improvement in expertise is not a function of age of service but that of regularity of training and retraining on the job. Therefore, to improve experience and expertise, police personnel should be given frequent training in and outside the country on best policing practices, rather than increasing their service years. 

Retention of experienced personnel and reduction in the cost of training and recruiting new officers – This cannot be a justifiable ground for increasing the service years of police personnel. Police personnel are usually recruited annually. At the point of entry, they are not of the same age. They do not retire at the same time. Therefore, there can be no question of depletion of experienced personnel in the NPF as there would always be experienced hands available to discharge police duties even as experienced hands retire. Similarly, the concern about cost of training does not arise.

From a cost/benefit perspective, no special cost is required to train new police personnel since the nature of police duties requires regular recruitment of new police personnel. Any gap in recruitment will harm the regenerative capability of the NPF to inject fresh young blood into the force, to cope with the stressful demands of the tasks of policing which cannot be addressed by retaining older police personnel through increase in service years.

Improving the morale performance and job satisfaction in the workforce of the Nigerian Police Force – This also cannot justify increase in service years of police personnel. As a matter of fact, because of the stressful nature of work performed by police personnel, increasing their service years may lead to unsavoury consequences, such as serious medical conditions associated with stress and even death on the job.

Besides, there is relative lack of mobility and job diversification in the police service. This creates a situation of rank stagnation and a bottom-heavy service with too many officers competing for too few jobs.

The lack of advancement or variety leads to what experts have described as “the wall” after a number of years, causing a repetitive and monotonous career routine that can eventually dampen morale and undermine job satisfaction which cannot be cured by increase in service years. Increase in service years may actually exacerbate the situation as police personnel would suffer through the effect of “the wall” for more years than if they retire earlier than proposed in the Bill.   

Addressing the shortage of experienced police personnel – This is another poor justification for seeking an increase in the service years of police personnel. As earlier noted above, the nature of police service creates very limited opportunity for job mobility and diversification.

The consequence of this is that too many experienced hands may languish in the same position for many years. This is a universal challenge which has been compounded in Nigeria by the challenge of federal character and the quota system required for promotion of senior police personnel. Therefore, rather than suffer from shortage of experienced hands, the NPF suffers the opposite; which is that it has too many experienced hands who are grossly under-utilised.

For instance, many Commissioners of Police do not hold command positions, not because of lack of capacity or experience but because of limited command positions in the NPF. Increasing the service years of police personnel will not reverse this situation. It will further create frustration for police personnel who may never gain career advancement till retirement despite their experience, even with the increase in service years.  
 
Recommendations
From the foregoing, it is recommended that the Bill should not be passed by the National Assembly. The Bill does not cure any perceived problem associated with the present years of service of police personnel in Nigeria. On the contrary, the increase may compound the challenges associated with the work of policing in the country.

To ensure that police personnel are able to maximise their years of service in the NPF for the overall benefit of the country, the following are recommended:
Frequent recruitment of young persons into the NPF.
Frequent training and retraining of police personnel.
Adequate provisions of healthcare and safety needs of police personnel.
Diversification of job schedule of police personnel.
 Increase in command positions in the NPF.
Improvement in emoluments and pensions of police personnel.
 
Conclusion
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the present service years of the NPF. The present recruitment age limit of 18-25 years and retirement age of 35 years of service or 60 years of age are within the universal standard. The work of police personnel is too stressful to endure longer years of service than necessary.

In the final analysis, it appears that the most assured way to deal with the concerns which motivated the Bill is to recruit fresh young blood into the NPF rather than to increase the service years in the NPF as proposed in the Bill. These young persons should be carefully monitored and guided along their career paths so that they can give their best to improve the effectiveness of the NPF.  This process would entail frequent training and retraining, adequate healthcare, and improvement in emoluments, among other motivating factors.
 Omoregie (SAN) is a professor of Comparative Constitutional Law and Governance.