Police Service Commission (PSC) – Former Inspector-General of Police, now Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Sir Mike Mbama Okiro and his team at the Commission have a huge task on their hands presently.
In just three weeks after the PSC extended invitation online to job seekers to feel the 10, 000 vacancies, reports said 705,352 applications had been lodged by applicants, a situation that clearly buttressed the level of widespread unemployment and desperation in the country.
But the Commission requires the services of just 500 Cadet Assistant Superintendents of Police, 500 Cadet Inspectors, 1,500 Specialist Officers and 7, 500 Constables.
Okiro says he is excited by the spectacular interest shown by Nigerians in joining the police; and the Commission has assured the applicants of fair and equal treatment, as well as promised committing itself to conducting a transparent recruitment process to usher the country’s best brains into the police.
But all will depend to a great extent on the quality of men and women police authorities are able to pick from the ongoing recruitment exercise.
Though the Okiroled Commission says it is gunning for the ‘best brains’, it is obvious, from the outrageous number of applicants, that a lot of them are seeking police jobs not because of their passion to serve as police officers, but to wriggle out of the penury of unemployment.
Thus, the first major challenge of the Commission will be to explore ways of isolating qualified people with the zeal to serve. Besides, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2004 faulted recruitment exercises in the Nigeria Police and other law enforcement agencies, saying the processes lacked proper scrutiny.
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