A new law seeking to reposition the Nigerian police force and strengthen policing in the country demands that citizens seeking to join the force must possess a minimum of Ordinary National Diploma (OND).
Vanguard reports that if the new law sails through, citizens seeking to join the force as Constables or enlist via Nigerian Police Academy as cadets would have to satisfy the requirement for ordinary national diploma
The proposed bill which is being fine-tuned at several levels by the federal government, also seeks to expand the membership of the Police Service Commission to accommodate representatives from the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), the National Human Rights Commission NHRC) and Civil Society Organisation (CSO).
In addition, the impending law stipulates that the PSC board must accommodate a Nigerian youth, not below the age of 35, a woman with an interest in sexual harassment and gender-based violence and a retired police officer not below the rank of a police commissioner.
What’s more, the bill also stipulates that unlike the existing law, the chairman of the PSC should be a serving police officer not above the age of 55 at the time of appointment and not a card-carrying member of any political party while the board should also include a retired judge of either the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal.
Interestingly, the proposal was designed to ensure that erring officers and men of the NPF are promptly investigated after a maximum of 6 months probe and punished over reported cases of brutality and abuses against Nigerians, unlike what is obtainable in the current PSC law, which gives no timeframe for investigating and concluding complaints lodged by Nigerians against offending police officers.
The new legislation also has provisions for the increase of salaries and emoluments of police officers and men of the force such that it will be attractive to enlist competent individuals into the force as well as eliminate indolent and criminally-minded elements from the system.
