The Police Service Union embarked on a strike on August 29, 2022, to press home their demand for better welfare as well as the usurping of their powers by the office of the Inspector General of Police and the Ministry of Police Affairs. In this interview with MAYOWA SAMUEL, President of the Union, Adoyi Adoyi-Ojogbane, narrates the several unconstitutional actions committed against the Union. Excerpts:
The Police Service Union embarked on an indefinite strike last Monday. What’s the situation of things at the moment regarding the strike? Any hope of arriving at a resolution to call off the strike?
The Union went on strike based on certain issues on the ground bordering on constitutional concerns, and also the fact that there was a contempt of Court regarding that matter because it is actually an issue that dates back from history until a court judgement was passed by the Court of Appeal. When the Commission began a recruitment process, the Nigeria Police, through the Force Public Relations Officer came on a live interview on Channels Television, renouncing that process. That wasn’t all, the staff of the commission were irked by the fact that after the Force PRO’s interview, the management put up a statement that claimed to have capitulated on the position of the Commission. So, knowing that this is an issue that had been on for a while and had not been resolved by management over time, staff agitated, because of the fact that, apart from the constitutional breach, and the lawlessness which that matter was, it was a continuous erosion of the duties of the commission which foretold that as usual, staff were being pushed into redundancy, especially given the fact that after each turn of agitation, things got worse, giving the impression that some people do not really want this nation to exist. Despite the fact that the issue is a constitutional matter that affects all Nigerians, it also particularly affects the staff, in the sense that even as bona fide Nigerians, we’re being told inadvertently that we had no right to contribute our own quota to national development and enjoy the benefits of experience on a good job, thereby creating indolence in the workplace.
In an interview you granted last week, you accused the management of PSC of nepotism, which is stuttering the Commission’s growth. You said the commission is starved of funds, staff members are owed their entitlements as far back as 2011 and many others have not been paid. What moves, to the best of your knowledge, has the government made to resolve this crisis?
What I can say about that is till this point, nothing has been done. We have evidence of several letters and reminders that we’ve written to management several times. Each time we do that, what happens is that they tell us to calm down and that they are attending to those issues. From every indication, it is so painful that the commission seems to be running seriously against a lot of conspiracy from the fact that very highly placed powerful personalities which we strongly suspect are mostly in the ranks of retired IGPs and other high-ranking police officers will not allow the commission to run properly. The situation is not helped by the fact that this pressure group always finds its way to lobby the government of the day. All the governments in power, apart from that of President Olusegun Obasanjo who appointed the first chairman of the commission to be a civilian, the tradition of bringing in retired police officers took effect, with the implication that whenever they do this lobbying, they do it to kill the commission for self-serving purposes. Because of that, the commission remained redundant for the benefit of the Nigerian Police, not the entire police force but the top echelon of the force who rather than have it as a role that the commission oversees the activities of the Nigerian Police, it turns the other way round. The commission suffers these setbacks in very many ways. A commission poorly funded as it is, hardly has the resources to manage most of its offices and operations generally. Sometimes when monies are released, especially recruitment money for the commission to carry out recruitment exercises, not knowing where to keep those monies, there are times when the Commission will even leave this money for the Nigerian Police to keep for them. You also see situations whereby the allocations coming to the commission are very meagre. As I speak to you, there are no working tools in the Commission.
In the same interview, you said staff don’t have sitting space, no desk or chairs, and there’s a site of the commission which has not been completed for reasons very difficult to understand.
.…(cuts in) Too bad that is the situation. Most staff of the commission, even some senior staff don’t even have a space to sit. There are no chairs or tables to sit at work. What is happening to the commission is haywire policies orchestrated by people who are in very influential positions because they have the power to lobby, and by the fact too that the commission is run by retired police officers who are turned between loyalty to their former organisation and loyalty to the Nigerian state, through their current positioning as chairmen of the commission. Also for the fact that the act establishing the commission is the only act so far that has not been amended amongst all other agencies in the league of the commission so far. Whenever there is a move to amend the act of the commission, somehow it gets stalled and we suspect that it is because of certain influential persons who want to keep the commission lying. People continue to look at the issue as recruitment alone, it’s not true.
“What is happening to the commission is haywire policies orchestrated by people who are in very influential positions because they have the power to lobby”
With this poor welfare of the police by the government, the non-availability of office tools, and the poor firearms they operate with, how bad has it gotten regarding the fight against insecurity?
One of the very essences of having the Police Service Commission is to have administrative support for the Nigeria Police and take their attention away from any kind of distraction that may arise in their line of duty to enable them to focus properly on the job of security which is purely operations. Another essence is the fact that ensuring that there is neutrality in managing the core personnel and human resource issues of the Nigerian police like recruitment, promotion and discipline will create neutrality in those areas and ensure that for an organisation as important as the Nigeria Police, justice and fairness will boost the morale of officers and men to carry out their responsibilities without hindrance. You can agree with me that most times when you meet policemen in Nigeria, they are usually aggressive because of the fact that there may have been issues of injustices like denial of promotion, or victimisation on the job by senior officers. As it is today, it can be argued that merit does not really exist in the promotion of police officers in Nigeria.
Talking about merits, Mr. Ken Eluma Asogwa told The Point that promotion of DSPs to AIGs, even to DIGs, was done recently but all the officers in that rank from a region of the country due for the same promotion were left out. But the IG replied insisting that those officers were promoted based on competence and not because of the region. Is that the case?
As things stand now, I don’t know about that particular case because most of the issues you are talking about now are not really directly handled by the commission but that is exactly what we are complaining about. We’ve talked about merit, we’ve talked about federal character. Where there is no merit in the force, you will see where junior officers have become senior to those who were senior to them. We’ve also seen a situation where while the commission is supposed to be equally involved in the posting of commissioners of police, we are also supposed to also take into account federal character. The truth of the matter is that the issues of discipline, promotion and recruitment, basically discipline and promotion, is to have an insider handling it, you will create the propensity for favouritism but an independent body will always ensure that just by the tale of justice, that the right thing is done. We should look at the larger picture of how this affects Nigerians. First of all, it is an attempt to deliver the Nigeria Police Force from itself because you will know that the greatest challenge the Nigeria Police Force has is itself, not anybody. When you see the story behind the ENDSars and how it happened, you will know if the Nigeria Police was being well managed, it couldn’t have happened. A policeman could commit a crime here, rather than discipline him, they hide their identity and probably transfer him to another state. ENDSARS didn’t just happen in one day. ENDSARS happened because several instances of police brutality and extra-judicial murders have happened. People were taking account of those issues to a point that there was a particular one that had reached a crescendo.
A certain group recently lauded the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force in the midst of a strike. How do you interpret that?
They call the group Coalition for Civil Society Groups. They endorsed the Nigeria Police, giving them a pass mark in the handling of recruitment so far. You know if you look at it against the backdrop of our agitation, you will know that it is a very laughable one, and you will understand that it is just a hatchet job by some paid hirelings because the truth of the matter is that in the first place, that so-called civil society group is unknown. We googled them, they are fictitious. You will know that these are shady characters who are just working for their paymasters. Those ones are doing their hatchet job because this is a time for agitation and all they can do is to probably put it there and just use fictitious names. We have read it and they are laughing at their antiques. We intend to make a response to that, and also to the claim that we are being sponsored by some politicians or hired people. These are suggestions that are very pedestrian and infantile because at our age, we are talking about our working conditions and the injustices being done to us as bona fide Nigerians who have a right to contribute our own quota to national development.
You also talked about another infraction that the IG has commenced illegal police recruitment exercise presently going on in the Police Academy in Kano which doesn’t seem to have been advertised, which is also illegal. Kindly shed light on that.
There is Constable recruitment for 10,000 officers which is what the commission advertised for and caused a problem, the one the president approved. On the other hand, the Police Academy is an institution just like the NDA, a degree-awarding institution that culminates in Bachelor’s degree and so on, and at the end of the day, those who have graduated from that institution have the option of joining the Nigeria Police Force and becoming ASPs who are senior officers. Now, because that Police Academy is a process in itself, recruiting people into the force, the commission is a stakeholder, and that has been the case until recently when the IGP came and muscled the commission out of it. In that Court of Appeal judgement, they were unequivocal in stating the fact that the commission is indeed very relevant as per the issue of the police academy.
How will you describe the president’s attitude or inaction towards this crisis between the PSC and the Nigeria Police?
That’s actually the reason for our anger with the management. The management is the embodiment of the commission. We believe that for someone to have become a chairman of the commission or the appointed member of the board of the commission, such people must definitely have political connections and will. So, when they are appointed to the board and issues like this arise, they need to rise to the occasion and meet with the president to get solutions. It was even in the news where the commission board went to meet with the president at some point in 2019 when this issue was still hot, and the president made the comment that he expects the Police Service Commission to put the Nigerian Police to order. So, the president is obviously aware of the role of the commission, and he spoke about his expectations. So why things are still happening this way is a matter that we on our own cannot even understand, and that is the reason why we believe that we need to tell our own story. We are actually also putting up a letter for the president.
