Police To Raise Minimum Entry Qualification
There are indications that the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, is set to increase the minimum qualification anybody wishing to join the force must possess.
If a new law being proposed to reposition the force and strengthen policing in the country sails through, Ordinary National Diploma, OND will be the minimum entry qualification before anyone can join the police.
Already, the bill, which will seek to repeal the law establishing the Police Service Commission and establish a new one, is being fine-tuned at several levels by the Federal Government.
Under the proposal, the requirement for ordinary national diploma would apply to those seeking to join the NPF as constables and others seeking to enlist in the Nigeria Police Academy as cadets.
Similarly, the proposed legislation also seeks to expand the membership of the Police Service Commission, PSC, to accommodate representatives from the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, and Civil Society Organizations, CSOs.
Additionally, 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.
The bill also stipulates that unlike the existing law, 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.
But the proposal makes an elaborate plan to curtail the excesses of police officers and men by stating that all erring NPF officers must be promptly investigated and punished over reported cases of brutality and abuses against Nigerians.
