The 197 Senior Police Officers, who were unceremoniously retired by the Police Service Commission (PSC) due to the Regularisation Of First Date Of Entry Exercise, are not ready to accept it without a fight.
According to them, the PSC, led by a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Mr Hashimu Argungu, may have taken that stance without knowing of an existing judgement on the same issue.
According to sources, since the 13th of January 2021, the industrial court of Nigeria in Abuja Judicial Division in suit Nos NCIN/ABJ/345/2019 and NICN/ABJ/353/2019 had ruled on it.
According to crimeworld.com.ng, the affected officers, who were part of Force Entrants Courses 18, 19, and 20, were accused of falsifying their service records.
However, court documents reveal that the issue had been settled in their favour by the Industrial Court of Nigeria in Abuja, with judgments delivered on January 13, 2021, in suit numbers NCIN/ABJ/345/2019 and NICN/ABJ/353/2019.
Despite the court judgment, the PSC and the Nigeria Police Force resorted to self-help, ignoring the court’s decision and perverting justice.
The PSC had issued a directive to the then IGP on the Regularisation Of the Date Of Entry Of Officers Of Force Entrants in Courses 18, 19, and 20 in a letter dated 22nd June 2020.
These officers entered the Force as non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and later acquired higher university degrees.
Upon applying for the Cadet ASP programmes along with their civilian counterparts, where some of the civilians were employees of banks, federal, state and local employees, and attended interviews, they were appointed as Cadets Assistant Superintendent Of Police (Cadet ASP). They were issued fresh appointment letters with fresh dates after the 18 months of training in line with a decision in 1989 reference signal number CE 2710/PS/VOL 3/205 dated 1st June 1989 that NCOs before taking up a fresh appointment as cadet ASP must resign their earlier appointment and start afresh as the date of their first appointment.
This was re-emphasized in the PSC 24th plenary decision in letter no PSC/1524/111/275 dated 25th October 2017 to the IGP to implement.
The Police delay in implementing the decision of the PSC 24th plenary prompted officers concerned to approach the court and judgement was delivered in favour of courses 18,19 and 20 which the PSC directed the police to implement.
The Police in signal number CB:3594/FS/FHQ/ABJ/ VOL 2/244 DTO 291225/07/ 2021 implemented the judgement of the court and the Police Service Commission was communicated on 30th April 2021.
It is not clear whether the present management of the PSC was unaware of this development.
Though the Industrial Court ruled in favour of these officers, the PSC undaunted, proceeded to the Appeal Court for a better interpretation.
At the Appeal court again, the learned justices upheld the decision of the lower court and even fined the PSC N1 million for abuse of the court process; for bringing such a matter that had been duly adjudicated up at the lower court.
Sequel to the Appeal Court judgement, both the PSC and the Police authority jointly agreed to implement the same and recall officers who may have been retired with regards to the ‘Regularisation Of Date Of Entry Exercise’ of the PSC back to their offices.
A signal sighted from the PSC to the police dated June 24, 2020, titled Re: Decision of the Commission’s 24th Plenary Meeting: Regulation of date of first appointed reads thus: “The Commission wishes to refer you to a letter PSC/1524/111/275 dated October 25, 2017, on the above subject matter.
“This is to reiterate that the Commission’s 24th Plenary Meeting held on 27th, 28th September 2017Considered/Complainant forwarded to it by aggrieved police officers if course 18, 19 Police Academic owing to the controversy surrounding their date of first appointment and decided that in line with previous decision taken on a similar matter, all officers with similar situation caused by signal N0. CE2710/ PS/VOL3/205 dated June 1, 1989, who were directed to resign their appointment as NCOs before taking up fresh appointments as Cadet ASP are to maintain the date of their appointment as Cadet ASP on the date of their first appointment.”
Some of the affected officers contended that Argungu was in service when the Police authority got judgment over the PSC on the issue, stressing: “It is alarming that the PSC and the Nigeria Police Force would disregard the rule of law and ignore the court’s judgment. This is a clear case of injustice, and we demand that the authorities take immediate action to rectify this situation.
“How can Argungu-led PSC be talking about this issue that had been settled years back in which the PSC was even fined millions for abuse of court process?
“Is it that he is not privy to files of the court judgements? Most of us affected by the latest directive entered the Force as NCOs as graduates and later we were interviewed and passed.
“After that, we were issued with fresh appointment letters with fresh dates of entry; which means our years as NCOs had been cancelled. The matter became an issue of contention and we went to court and defeated the PSC.
“They even went to Appeal Court and again, we won. The PSC was even fined N1million for abuse of court process.”
Credit: crimeworld.com.ng
