A plot to blackmail the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Sir Mike Mbama Okiro was saturday uncovered .
A statement made available to THISDAY revealed that some police officers in collaboration with some selfish politicians and civil society groups, are ganging up to smear the good image of Okiro.
According to the statement, service commission is purely on merit having performed creditably well as IGP, and not on political affiliation or ethnic agenda. “Since Okiro’s appointment in June 2013, he has rectified several lopsided promotions and postings, especially ethnic imbalance, in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
“The chairman always exhibit professionalism and uprightness without sentiments in approving promotions, postings and retirements. However, some of the corrupt police officers and politicians who believe in short cuts to the top are not happy with his patriotic performance.
“Instead, they are in tandem planning to use the press, social media and civil society groups with cooked up allegations, to smear the good image of the chairman. Two civil society groups and some social media in the South-west have been consulted, to publish frivolous allegations against the former IGP.
“Intelligence information indicate that, the disgruntled officers are against the recent promotions and recommendations by the immediate past IGP, Solomon Arase. Mr. Arase had on his exit gave automatic promotions to policemen attached to the President, Vice President, all Governors, all Ministers, the Senate President and his Deputy, the Speaker and his Deputy, as well as past IGPs.”
For the records, the statement further stated that Okiro’s responsibility as chairman of PSC, is to approve recommendations by the IGP of promotion of officers from the rank of Assistant Superintended of Police (ASP) and above.
He is also saddled with the responsibility of approving posting of state Commissioners of Police (CPs) and zonal Assistant Inspectors-General of Police (AIGs) as recommended by the IGP, while the Presidency sometimes gives similar approvals. His responsibility also includes discipline of erring police officers from the rank of ASP, and retirement of officers who are statutorily due for retirement, or are recommended for retirement on disciplinary grounds.
To avoid corruption and ensure probity, Okiro gave stern warning to his staff and police officers, in the current recruitment exercise of 10,000 policemen, that, only those qualified should be recruited, no godfatherism. That is why he fed requisite qualifications into the computer which selected 338,000 applicants out of 960,000 that applied online.
In a related development, some politicians are said to be angry with the former IGP who is from the South-south region, for appealing to the Niger Delta Avengers and other militants to drop their arms and embrace dialogue with the federal government.
