According to the applicants, they were asked to resume without the list being released as is the usual practice of the Nigerian Police Academy.
Some of the applicants for the 2020 8th Regular course of the Nigeria Police Academy have cried out over the injustice in the force in the process of selection of recruits.
A number of candidates who spoke with SaharaReporters said they were forced to select the institution as their first choice while neglecting other higher institutions of learning thereby missing out on other opportunities.
According to the applicants, they were asked to resume without the list being released as is the usual practice of the Nigerian Police Academy.
One of them told SaharaReporters, “The Nigeria Police Academy kept her applicants waiting for admission since 2020 and in June 2021, they called applicants for screening which made some applicants miss the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
“They called about 4,000 people for screening and after wasting our time for one year, they made us miss opportunities of getting admission into other universities; they admitted just 600 people out of 4000.
“The worst of it all is that they admitted people and they resumed without releasing any final list and also refused to follow the principle of federal character (selecting an equal amount of people from each state).”
Another applicant stated, “As a requirement for admission into the Nigerian Police Academy, the academy made it clear that the UTME had to be taken by each aspirant and must have chosen NPA as their first choice of institution and score not less than 180 to be qualified for the entrance exams to the Nigerian Police Academy (NPA) / POLAC.
“Candidates seeking admission into the NPA after being successful in the JAMB UTME test must also apply via the academy portal (polac.edu.ng) paying the sum of N3,500 to purchase the online application form otherwise, the candidate will not be qualified. So many aspirants passed and made it to the Entrance Examination while others didn't, as usual.
“The entrance examination took place after a very long time due to the outbreak of COVID-19, and after several postponements which made many aspirants shun other institutions, they should've applied, making some of them missing opportunities because of the belief that the NPA will admit many like that of Regular Course 7.
“Candidates took the exams and roughly 4,000 candidates were shortlisted, though not all candidates would be admitted; but this gave them high hope that many would be admitted. Unfortunately for them, a few were admitted and the academy still didn't release an official list on the website.
“Meanwhile, the remaining may still be having fake hopes because POLAC left them without a form of notification on the academy website. Moreover, the forms sold out by the NPA were over 10,000 and what was their reason for not limiting the form sales when they'll not admit up to a thousand?”
Still another candidate said, “Apart from that, NPA stated clearly the requirements an aspirant must meet before being admitted but some were absent in the screening exercise, some didn't make the cutoff mark and yet they get admitted because money was paid to the admission boards or they have someone they know who can secure an admission for them.
“After the screening exercise, which was postponed many times, later took place June/ July 2021, normally, the police academy usually posts on their website the list of the successful and admitted candidates a month after the screening exercise, but the RC8 candidates waited for roughly two months for the shortlist.
“Later, by rumours the candidates got to know that they could check admission via Jamb Caps. Meanwhile, the aspirants are still wondering why Jamb Caps? And there's still no official announcement/update on the academy website.
”After almost a month of the informal and unusual admission through the Jamb Caps of about 640 names, the whole admitted names were erased and not so long after the erasure of the Caps, the academy announced the resumption date for the unofficial Caps list and yet refused to publish the list officially on the website as what the aspirants consider official is always anything that appears on the website.
“Aspirants should get answers to the following questions: 1.Why was the list not published through the usual channel? 2. If they knew that they weren’t going to admit as many students as they did in RC7, they shouldn’t have put on 4000 plus students for an interview where they would be selecting only 600. Why?
“3. And why wasn’t there any form of information regarding the list they left us unattended to and the next thing we can see is resumption dates and now they’ve resumed and still no official statement has been made on their website.
“Honestly, it so sad that corruption exists where corruption fighters are made.”
A candidate also lamented, “The applicants of the 8th regular course of the Nigeria Police Academy have been treated very unfairly. After series of postponements of the entrance exams and then the screening, a lot of inconveniences caused as many of us had to rebook our flights down to Kano (paying more money). Many had to travel by road despite the heavy insecurity, they took the risk.
“Over 3500 applicants were shortlisted for the screening. Unfortunately for batch 1, many of us missed our UTME as it clashed with the screening. They also refused to release a list of successful candidates like in previous years. They only released a resumption date on the portal. So the few who got admission via JAMB caps resumed.
“It's even more painful because they didn't pick from each states equally as regards to the principle of federal character. I want it to be brought to the notice of the police service commission as well as the ministry of police affairs.
“There's nothing on their portal concerning the admission except the resumption dates. Every aspirant knows not everyone would be admitted but they disrespected us and made our efforts futile, caused us pain, wasted our time and made the screening clash with this year UTME exams.”
One of the aggrieved students continued, “There is injustice at police academy the applicants are not happy about it, the academy has refused to release an official list to show those admitted, rather they did it underground and during the admission process they admitted people that didn't even write the exams some of those admitted didn't even come for screening and when we went for screening we were asked to feed ourselves after paying transport fee from far and it is never done that way.
“This admission is 2020 admission, not 2021 and many of us missed this year UTME because we were in the screening and the police haven't addressed the issue, we are dying in silence; this has affected many of us both in studies and mental health; some states had about 300 shortlisted but 26 were selected. We deserve to know what's happening at least."