Buhari Intervenes In Police Recruitment Crisis, Meets IGP, PSC

President Muhammadu Buhari is currently meeting with the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, and the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Musiliu Smith, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The meeting also has in attendance the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, and other members of the PSC.

The agenda of the meeting may not be unconnected to the ongoing controversy surrounding the recruitment of police constables.

The police force and the PSC were said to be having a running battle over who controls the recruitment of 10,000 constables into the force.

A PSC commissioner, Austin Braimoh, had in a recent interview said that the commission will not yield its mandate to the police force.

“It is not the business of the police to recruit. it is a constitutional issue. What the police are cashing on is that the Police Regulations of 1945, according to them, had not been repealed. But unfortunately, they are not hinging that on the rule of law,” Braimoh told Punch.

“What we want to do is to go to court and get the interpretation of the law. The police regulation, in the absence of the Police Service Commission, derived its power from the Nigeria Police Council headed by the President and comprising the governors of the 36 states.

“The council had the power to recruit and promote personnel, as well as to superintend over the Nigeria Police Force until the Police Service Commission Act came into being in 2001. Then all the powers of the Nigeria Police Council were transferred to the commission,” he had said.