Speaking to SaharaReporters, the officers accused the leadership of the police and the Police Service Commission of insensitivity to their plight.
Some rank and file personnel in the Nigeria Police Force, who have qualified as lawyers have called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the authorities concerned to intervene regarding their delayed promotions.
According to them, their colleagues who qualified as medical doctors and engineers have since been elevated to senior ranks while many of them remain as sergeants or corporals 10 years after joining the Force.
Speaking to SaharaReporters, the officers accused the leadership of the police and the Police Service Commission of insensitivity to their plight.
According to them, they deserve to be elevated to the ranks of Assistant Superintendent of Police(ASP), Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and Superintendent of Police (SP).
The policemen appealed to President Buhari and the Inspector General of Police to address the injustice, embarrassment, neglect and deprivation they are being subjected to.
They further lamented that numerous efforts made to ensure the promotion of junior police lawyers who are on grade levels 3, 4, 5 and 6 have not yielded positive results.
“There is an untold agony which lawyers are passing through in the Nigeria Police Force. We were called to bar about 10, 11 years ago but guess our ranks, Sergeant and Corporal,” one of the aggrieved officers told SaharaReporters.
“It is more profound given that we who profess law and justice and fetch it for others cannot fetch it for ourselves, especially as we face the fear of sanction from the authorities of the police force who will not allow us to air our grievances on such aberration. I and over 50 lawyers in the police with so many years of practice in the law for the police are denied the opportunity of elevation to senior officer cadre which we are entitled to be on being called to the bar.
“What is more, our professional colleagues in the police, medical doctors even veterinary surgeons were elevated to the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police in 2016. Whereas, we have been clamouring for elevation due to our cadre since 2011 and nobody paid attention to those of us who are lawyers. Then in 2016, when the doctors were elevated to DSP rank, we lamented, even our NBA Abuja branch wrote to police authorities about lawyers being placed in very regarding rank as messengers, clerks, cleaners in police work because rank and file in police work are equivalent to messengers, cleaners, and clerks in civil service, that it is professionally degrading.
“The police authorities paid lip service to it and promised to give the rank and file police lawyers their due elevation in 2018. We were called to Abuja but yet they did not elevate us, while we are yet disappointed. In 2022 April, the police authorities promoted almost 30 engineers in the police who are rank and file and inspectors, elevating them to the rank of Superintendent of Police. We the lawyers have been chest bearers and anchor men and defenders of the police against all civil actions instituted against the police and we have onerous responsibilities of prosecution of criminal cases even administration of criminal justice law place so much responsibility on us that we are so pivotal to the fulcrum of police work and the legal department is very much pronounced in NPF yet we are sidelined, marginalized, cheated and oppressed.
“From the way it goes now, those our colleagues are likely to get up to CP Ranking or cadre before retirement while we will not come up to half of their level because of the denial we are subjected to. This is highly demoralizing and wicked. The only reason they elevated them is that they are professionals and that their professional body insists that there is a minimum placement their colleagues in public service must be placed.
“One now begins to wonder if lawyers are not professionals. Moreso, the unity bar had earlier even before 2012 started writing to and complaining to the police authorities to elevate the lawyers to senior officers and they neglected the appeal, only to elevate the other professionals. Personally, if it is translated into envy or hatred for lawyers, I can't just understand. But it's time to expose this inequity and iniquity to our countrymen.
“Even NBA Unity Bar, Abuja is shocked that the police treat lawyers in the force with this heinous injustice and disdain whilst elevating other professionals. The NBA and its lawyers cannot be rubbished. The Police Service Commission, Minister of Police Affairs, Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Justice of the Federation, and President of Nigeria Bar Association cannot speak for us as far as the IGP has not accepted to elevate us and we cannot complain to the IGP again for we are mocked and we are tired.”