Chairman of Police Service Police Commission (PSC), retired Inspector-General of Police, Sir Mike Okiro, has disclosed that in about three months time, there would be mass promotion of senior police officers who have been stagnated on one rank.

He disclosed the cheering news while on a live phone-in programme on WFM 91.7 Lagos radio station on Thursday.

Okiro said his Commission and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, “are working out a structure in the police to create vacancies for officers who are due for promotion but have not be promoted due to lack of vacancies for them.”

“I feel for them, because it is not because they have bad records but because there are no vacancies. You cannot promote an officer to a higher rank and there is no office for his or her new rank,” the PSC Chairman said.

He noted that many Chief Superintendents of Police (CSPs) are due for promotion to the next rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), but that there are no vacancies for them. Okiro lamented that many of the officers have spent eight to ten years on one rank and this can affect their morale.

The programme, anchored by Janet Mba-Afolabi, also touched on indiscipline and corruption in the Nigeria Police Force, as well as welfare for motivation of police officers.

On indiscipline, Okiro said that while he was IGP he decentralised the X-Squad section of the police, which deals with arrest and discipline of erring police officers. “For effectiveness I gave a standing order that every state Commissioner of Police should have X-Squad section in their commands. This is because you don’t expect police in Abuja to go to either Sokoto or Calabar and arrest erring policemen. So it is easier to monitor erring policemen in the state by X-Squad team in the state,” he stated.

The PSC Chairman noted that policemen are not recruited from another country or from the moon. “They are Nigerians, if the society is corrupt, it will produce corrupt policemen. If the society is decent it will also produce uncorrupt policemen,” he said.

He, however, explained that “policemen are supposed to fight crime and if any policeman is found to be corrupt, the Commission will deal with such a policeman that is why there is the X-Squad section to deal with erring police officers.

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