The recruitment of 10,000 police officers by the Buhari
administration which comprises of 500 Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police,
500 Cadet Inspectors, 1500 Specialist Officers and 7500 Constables commenced on
24th April 2016, but was stalled due to a disagreement between the
Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Senate Committee on Police Affairs,
over which criteria was to be used to select the 10,000 new officers
nationwide. While the PSC argued that State criteria be used, the Senate
Committee on Police Affairs wanted the PSC to use the local government area as
criteria. This resulted in a stalemate which was eventually resolved after a
long wait by adopting the local government area as criteria.
The
implication of this is that, the north which already has an advantage in the
Nigerian Police Force due to having more states than the south will be given
more advantage to the detriment of the south who are already out-numbered in
the current set-up in the Nigerian Police Force.
A
simply arithmetic calculation shows that:
Number of Local Governments in Nigeria= 774
Number of States= 36
Number of Police Officers to be recruited= 10,000
Number of Police Officers per State = 10,000/36= 277
Using Kano (44 LGAs) and Bayelsa (6 LGAs)
as example, we have:
Kano = 277/44 = 6 (Officers per LGA) and Bayelsa = 277/6 = 46 (Officers per LGA)
Number of Police Officers per Local Government Area = 10,000/774 = 12
Using Kano (44 LGAs) and Bayelsa (6 LGAs)
as example, we have:
Kano = 44*12 = 528 (Officers for Kano State) and Bayelsa = 6*12 = 72 (Officers for Bayelsa State)
Recruitment based on Local Government
Area will favour States like: Kastina, Kano, Borno, Jigawa, Imo, Osun and Akwa
Ibom due to their having high number of Local Governments.
Recruitment based on State will favour:
FCT, Bayelsa, Gombe, Ebonyi, Nassarawa, Lagos, Ogun etc.
