By MOSES OMOROGIEVA

The Police Service Commission (PSC) says no fewer than 136,177 applicants for recruitment as constables have been screened since the exercise started on Jan. 8.

The Public Relations Officer of the commission, Mr Ikechukwu Ani, said in a statement on Tuesday that details of a total of 108,768 of those screened had been uploaded.

Ani said that those yet to be uploaded was due to network challenges.

The PSC through the Police Recruitment Board is currently screening 416,270 Nigerian youths who applied to be considered for a career in the Nigeria Police Force.

“The candidates are being subjected to physical and credentials screening, a prelude to an aptitude test and other processes, including medical examination.

“The commission has with the ongoing recruitment exercise, upgraded and automated the processes to ensure its credibility and create a measurable standard for final selection of successful candidates.

“Results and outcome of the screening exercise are uploaded real time to the commission’s portal and monitored by the Situation Room set up and led by Commission’s Chairman, Mr Solomon Arase, retired Inspector-General of Police,” he said.

Ani said the chairman commended the officials for the successes so far, but expressed concern that some of the candidates were unable to write their names in spite of their secondary school certificates.

“Reports from the field showed a curious development, where many candidates with beautiful Senior Secondary School Certificates (SSSC) and National Examination Council Certificates cannot write their names or ordinarily introduce themselves.

“Arase wondered how they acquired such excellent certificates.

“He said that aptitude tests coming as a first stage of the recruitment process will help eliminate obviously unqualified candidates and reduce the size of persons that will subsequently appear for screening.”

Ani further said the chairman had vowed to ensure that the commission got it right and produce a template for effective and efficient recruitment exercise in Nigeria.

“When we get it right at the entry point, we would have almost gotten 60 per cent quality in the expected performance of the officers, and that is our objective.” (NAN)

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