Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo has suspended an ongoing promotion exercise in the Nigerian Police Force due to tribalism according to some sources.
According to Independent, sources in the Presidency said many senior police officers felt disenfranchised by the exercise which would have seen several junior police officers promoted above their senior officers, based on years of experience and not necessarily rank.
The Presidency source also told Independent that Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mike Okiro had sought presidential approval for the list which was recommended by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris. However Osinbajo would not endorse the list due to complaints from the rank and file.
Independent reports:
The current promotion exercise in the police from the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police to Commissioner of Police has elicited grumbling among their officers.
Some of the officers have alleged a move to subvert the seniority procedure of interviewing and promoting officers from the rank of Deputy Commissioners of Police to Commissioners of Police.
It was learnt that the development has caused some bad feelings among those concerned as they see it as injustice meted out to those who have been serving as DCPs for over four years without a blemish.
According to a source, the officers concerned have called the PSC to correct this “anomaly”, arguing that the implementation of the move would make their juniors automatically become their bosses in the force.
It was revealed that seven vacancies that needed to be filled exist for the rank of Commissioners of Police, but rather than select DCPs “on seniority grounds”, or according to “first come first serve basis”, officers who recently got their promotion as DCPs in 2015 and 2016 were surprisingly recommended and selected to stand for the interview which will make them commissioners.
According to a source, “Junior officers were recommended along with four others who were directed to act in that capacity in January 2017, and some of those who have been pencilled down for the rank of Commissioners of Police were officers that were just promoted to DCP rank in June 2016.”
“The police force that should show good example is discriminating and segregating against its own people; this is injustice, it is sad. How can these people put in their best? Just because they don’t have Abraham as father, what is due to them is denied them, it’s not good”, he said.