At least 29 Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria have questioned the ongoing consideration, by the National Assembly, of the Nigeria Police Act (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to amend the Nigeria Police Force Act, 2020, stating that the reasons stated for the amendment were weak and not plausible.
Reproduced below verbatim, is the argument of the 29 groups, stressing, “The justifications for the proposed increase appear not to be well articulated.”
The group states thus: “The National Assembly is currently considering the amendment of the Nigeria Police Act 2020 through the Nigeria Police Act (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
“The Bill has passed for a second reading. We also understand that there was a public hearing in late June 2024 on the Bill. From the long title, the amendment Bill seeks to achieve the following objectives: Review the service years of police personnel in order to improve the experience and expertise of the police workforce; Retain experienced personnel and reduce the cost of training and recruiting new officers; Improve morale, performance, and job satisfaction in the workforce of the Nigerian Police Force; and Address the shortage of experienced police personnel.
“Existing legal order: The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is established by section 214 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. The Nigeria Police Act 2020 further elaborates the legal framework of the Nigeria Police Force.
“The Nigeria Police Act 2020 repealed the 1943 Police Act, which was enacted by colonial authorities. It was the first time that the 77-year-old colonial Police Act, as of its repeal, benefited from a comprehensive review to bring the operational vision, doctrines and philosophy of the Nigeria Police in line with democratic policing standards and practices.
“Tenure And Legal Limits On Age And Years Of Service For The IGP: The Police Act 2020 prescribes a four-year term of office and retirement age of 60 or 35 years in service, whichever is earlier. This is in line with the civil service rules, which the Police Act makes reference to. With regards to age, Section 18, paragraph 8, says that every police officer shall, on recruitment or appointment, serve in the Nigeria Police Force for a period of 35 years or until he attains the age of 60, whichever is earlier.
“The present Bill seeks to amend section 18 of the Nigeria Police Act, 2020, by substituting sub-section (8) of the section with the following clause: “(8) Every police officer shall, on recruitment or appointment, serve in the Nigeria Police Force for 40 years or until he attains the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.”
According to the group, “In clear terms, the proposed clause (8) of the Bill seeks to increase the years of service of police officers by five years from the current 35 years of service. If the Bill passes, this means that the years of retirement would now be 40 years. It will also increase the maximum age of service from 60 years to 65 years. The effect would be that a police officer would then retire from service upon either attaining 40 years in service or 65 years of age, whichever comes first.
“This proposal, if accepted, will create special retirement service years or age for police officers different from the general norm in the civil/public service, including personnel of other security services, which is 35 years of service or 60 years of age.
“The justifications for the proposed increase appear not to be well articulated. From the long title of the Bill, the justifications given are: a) to improve the experience and expertise of the police workforce; b) to retain experienced personnel and reduce the cost of training and recruiting new officers; c) to improve the morale, performance, and job satisfaction in the workforce of the Nigerian Police n Force; and d) to address the shortage of experienced police personnel.
“With the greatest respect to the sponsors of the Bill, none of these grounds can justify an increase in the service years of police personnel as proposed by the Bill. This view is premised on the following grounds:
“Improvement in experience and expertise; The recruitment age limit into the Nigeria Police Force is between ages 18-25 years. If a police personnel is recruited at 18 years, that personnel would retire at 53 years of age after 35 years of service. If recruited at 25 years, the personnel would retire at 60 years of age after 35 years. Surely, the period of 1-35 years is more than sufficient for the police personnel to have gained sufficient experience and expertise to effectively perform the duties of police personnel before retirement.
“In any event, improvement in expertise is not a function of age of service but that of regularity of training and retraining on the job. The extant Police Act already has a provision that makes training and retraining of police personnel mandatory. Therefore, to improve experience and expertise, police personnel should be given frequent training in and outside the country on best policing practices rather than increasing their service years.
“Retention of experienced personnel and reduction in the cost of training and recruiting new officers: This can not be a justifiable ground for increasing the service years of police personnel. Police personnel are usually recruited annually. At the point of entry, they are not of the same age.
“They do not retire at the same time. Therefore, there can be no question of depletion of experienced personnel in the NPF as there would always be experienced hands available to discharge police duties even as experienced hands retire. Similarly, the concern about the cost of training does not arise.
“From a cost/benefit perspective, no special cost is required to train new police personnel since the nature of police duties requires regular recruitment of new police personnel. Any gap in recruitment will harm the regenerative capability of the NPF to inject fresh young blood into the force, to cope with the stressful demands of the tasks of policing which cannot be addressed by retaining older police personnel through an increase in service years.
“Improving the morale, performance, and job satisfaction in the workforce of the Nigerian Police Force. This also can not justify an increase in service years of police personnel. As a matter of fact, because of the stressful nature of work performed by police personnel, increasing their service years may lead to unsavoury consequences, such as serious medical conditions associated with stress and even death on the job.
“Besides, there is a relative lack of mobility and job diversification in the police service. This creates a situation of rank stagnation and a bottom-heavy service with too many officers competing for too few jobs.
“The lack of advancement or variety leads to what experts have described as “the wall” after a number of years, causing a repetitive and monotonous career routine that can eventually dampen morale and undermine job satisfaction which cannot be cured by increase in service years. Increase in service years may actually exacerbate the situation as police personnel would suffer through the effect of “the wall” for more years than if they retire earlier than pro-posed in the Bill.
“Addressing the shortage of experienced police personnel; This is another poor justification for seeking an increase in the service years of police personnel. As earlier noted above, the nature of police service creates very limited opportunities for job mobility and diversification.
“The consequence of this is that too many experienced hands may languish in the same position for many years. This is a universal challenge that has been compounded in Nigeria by the challenge of federal character and the quota system required for the promotion of senior police personnel. Therefore, rather than suffer from a shortage of experienced hands, the NPF suffers the opposite; which is that it has too many experienced hands who are grossly underutilised.
“For instance, many Commissioners of Police do not hold command positions, not because of lack of capacity or experience but because of limited command positions in the NPF. Increasing the service years of police personnel will not reverse this situation. It will further create frustration for police personnel who may never gain career advancement until retirement despite their experience, even with the increase in service years.”
Following the argument raised by the group, it therefore recommended thus: “From the foregoing, it is recommended that the Bill should not be passed by the National Assembly as it is presently proposed. The Bill, as it is, does not cure any perceived problem associated with the present years of service of police personnel in Nigeria. On the contrary, the increase may compound the challenges associated with the work of policing in the country.
“If the attempt to review the age is to give life to the section on secured tenure of office, what should be done is to review the Public Service Rules to include the Inspector General of Police, like it has been done with the judiciary and school teachers.
“The Police Act 2020 needs urgent and critical amendment for improvement but not along the line proposed in the amendment Bill under reference.
“The review of the Police Act should be done without pandering to the personal or narrow interests of any party. The police should be insulated from politics, remain apolitical, and be free from interference and manipulations.
“The section on recruitment, which was smuggled into the Police Act, 2020, should be expunged.The Police should be looking at having a Professional Ethics Department. The Police Regulations has put this forward to give life to this.
“The Complaints Response Unit (CRU) should be a stand-alone and not under the office of the Public Relations Officer. CRU is aimed at strengthening the Professional Integrity of the Police. It is not a public relations outfit. It aligns more with human resources management.
“To ensure that police personnel are able to maximise their years of service in the NPF for the overall benefit of the country, the following are recommended: 1. Frequent recruitment of young persons into the NPF. In this regard, the needless recurrent controversy over police recruitment which has stalled the conclusion of the recent police recruitment process, including training and deployment of recruited personnel should be decisively and dispassionately addressed and resolved, considering the dire police manpower need. 2. Frequent training and retraining of police personnel as mandated by the Police Act 2020. 3. Adequate provisions of the healthcare and safety needs of police personnel. 4. Diversification of the job schedule of police personnel. 5. Increase in command positions in the NPF. 6. Improvement in emoluments and pensions of police personnel.”
The group then concluded: “The process of any legislative process, no less, the amendment of the Police Act, should be an open, transparent and inclusive process that ensures that politics and personal interests are not prioritised over public good and public security.
“There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the present service years of the NPF. The present recruitment age limit of 18-25 years and the retirement age of 35 years of service or 60 years of age are within the universal standard. The work of police personnel is too stressful to endure longer years of service than necessary. There are other arrangements by which experienced police officers could still be engaged after retirement.”
