SaharaReporters had exclusively reported how the recruits who passed out of the police training institutions on December 29, 2022, had not been paid for months despite resuming at their duty posts across the country.
The Police Service Commission (PSC) says it has approved the payment of six months’ salaries for the police constables recruited last year.
SaharaReporters had exclusively reported how the recruits who passed out of the police training institutions on December 29, 2022, had not been paid for months despite resuming at their duty posts across the country.
One of the affected officers who spoke to the newspaper said that the situation had demoralised many of them as they were finding it difficult to meet their responsibilities to their families.
He added that most of the constables were "surviving on bribes and extortion" due to the delay in the payment of their salaries.
According to him, they have been reporting at their respective duty posts without pay since January 2023.
“And we are working 12 hours a day, for the whole week. No time for any other things, please we are suffering and dying of hunger already. They are indirectly teaching us corrupt practices,” he had said.
“We now beg for food and transport fee to go to work and we cannot protest because it's against the police regulations.
“And the worst part of this is that we are being posted to various special duties like we are already being paid. And we must go because it's an order. We must look for means either good or bad.”
In a statement on Sunday, the Head of the Press and Public Relations Unit of the Police Service Commission, Ikechukwu Ani, said salary payment for the new recruits had been approved.
Ani said the approval was in the interest of national security, anchored on the need to amicably resolve the lingering recruitment issues between PSC and the Nigeria Police Force.
The PSC spokesman said the issue had occasioned untold hardship on the police constables.
The statement read, “The Police Service Commission has approved salary payments for the 2021/2022 Police recruits who passed out of the Police Colleges and have been in formal Police work in different Police Commands and formations since the past six months without salary.
“The Commission's decision was reached in the interest of national security anchored on the need to amicably resolve the lingering issues of recruitment between the Commission and the Nigeria Police Force which have occasioned untold hardship on the Police Constables.
“The Commission's prompt response also followed outcry and appeals from Nigerians that the 2021/2022 Police recruits who are yet to be enrolled into the Federal Government's Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, and who had not received salaries, six months after they passed out from the Police Colleges and duly posted to Police Commands and formations for active Police work, are not made victims of the face-off between the Commission and the Nigeria Police Force.
“The Commission's approval for the enrollment of 1007 recruited personnel into the Nigeria Police Force in the recruitment exercise of 2021/2022 into the IPPIS payment platform for the purposes of salaries and other emoluments has been conveyed to the Accountant General of the Federation.
“In the letter signed by Dr. (Mrs) Ifeoma A. Anyanwutaku, Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Commission and dated, 5th May 2023, the Commission requested for ‘prompt and favourable response in activating and emplacing the necessary processes and procedures at ensuring that these Police Officers are immediately captured on the required payment platform and paid accordingly’.
“The Commission's Chairman Dr. Solomon Arase, CFR, former Inspector General of Police, feels a sense of discomfiture over newspaper reports that the Officers had since resorted to alms begging and other untidy acts to sustain themselves and had moved immediately to resolve all pending and envisaged issues surrounding the matter.
“Dr. Arase had announced at a Stakeholders meeting with Civil Society Organizations that the face-off between the Commission and the Nigeria Police Force will soon be over to the benefit of both parties and the greater interest of the Nigerian nation.”
In January, PSC asked the Accountant-General of the Federation to halt the capture of the 10,000 constables on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System.
According to the commission, the police officers had not been issued their letters of appointment and should not be enrolled on the payment portal.
According to the Public Service Rules, public officers not captured on the IPPIS cannot be paid salaries and other emoluments.
The development followed the alleged refusal of the Inspector-General of Police to submit their names to the PSC for vetting on the grounds that he was empowered by the Police Act, 2020 to recruit constables into the force.
The commission had also written to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Head of Service, Folasade Yemi-Esan about the enrolment of police officers on the salary portal without letters of appointment.