International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has berated the Inspector General of Police, IGP Adamu Abubakar, and the Chairman of Police Service Commission, IGP Musiliu Smith (retd), over recent promotions and postings in the service which it described as lopsided.
The group in a statement signed by Chidimma Udegbunam, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, lawyers, and Emeka Umeagbalasi, said despite protests against the similar lopsided police promotions and postings in the previous exercise against some sections of the country, especially Igbo, it was shocked that IGP and PSC “criminally” went ahead with its lopsided police promotions and postings in the most recent exercise.
The statement partly read: “Instead of discharging their duties as strictly stipulated by the Constitution and the Acts of the National Assembly creating their offices and stipulating their functions and duties, chairman of the Police Service Commission, Retired IGP Musiliu Smith and the current IGP, Adamu Abubakar, both Muslims, are incorrigibly using their respective positions to play ethnic and religious card. This is more so when out of 37 serving CPs in the country, only one is from the Southeast Region.
“Recall that the PSC had at its 7th plenary meeting held on Friday, 20th and Saturday, 21st Dec 2019 approved the promotion of 40 Deputy Commissioners of Police to Commissioners of Police; 98 Assistant Commissioners to Deputy Commissioners and 150 Chief Superintendents to Assistant Commissioners of Police. A total of 335 Superintendents also had their promotions approved to the next rank of Chief Superintendents of Police. The PSC further claimed that the “promotions were strictly based on seniority, merit, availability of vacancies and clean record of service…
“Political leaders of the South-East and strategic others were also brought in the know of the sad development and prayed to intervene or follow same up. We also requested for a policy waiver and special promotion to balance the monumental imbalance and give the brutally marginalised a sense of belonging and national identity.
“However, in the list of the newly promoted 40 Commissioners of Police studied by Intersociety, nothing has changed. Also, in the list of the newly redeployed senior police officers such as AIGs and State CPs as announced by the IGP, the body languages of the PSC Chair and the IGP respectively manifested.
“In other words, the PSC chair was caught in the analysis favouring his own Southwest officers in the promotions while the IGP favoured his ethno-religious brothers in the postings or redeployments following the promotions. For instance, out of the 40 newly promoted CPs studied and analyzed by Intersociety, 17 came from the Southwest region where the PSC Chair comes from; out of which Ogun got six, Lagos four, Oyo two, Ondo two, Osun two and Ekiti one while Southeast (the most marginalised) got only five. With this, Southwest now has 29 serving CPs in the country. This further shows that the region overshoots its regional average of 18 CPs with 11, while Southeast is under allocated or short-changed with seven CPs; having only 10 instead of 18.
“It must further be informed that there were 85 serving CPs as at 20th Dec 2019 and by the end of January 2020, there shall be 112 serving CPs in Nigeria, with Southwest taking the lion’s share of 29 and Southeast paltry left with 10.
