Police Recruitment News Today January 21, 2024: Fresh Challenges To Applicants
Police Recruitment News Today January 21, Update 2024: Fresh Challenges To Applicants
Police Recruitment News Today: Most states are seeing no problems with the recruitment process for the Nigeria Police Force’s constable cadre; nevertheless, several states in the south-south and southeast of the nation are facing significant difficulties for candidates.
For the screening process, applicants were instructed to travel to their states of origin. As a result, many of them are being turned away at screening centers since it appears that they appeared in the wrong state.
In several states in the southeast, candidates are encountering challenges in obtaining qualified guarantors due to the significant reduction in the number of Nigeria Police personnel from the area.
Additionally, some states are seeing low application turnout, despite several states having remarkable turnouts, with thousands of candidates vying for the few available places. For instance, the low number of applicants present for the in-person screening process has alarmed the Bayelsa State Police Command.
The Police Officers Mess on Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Road in Yenagoa is the site of the recruiting screening, which began on Monday, January 8, 2024, and is scheduled to conclude on Monday, January 29, 2024. The current exercise has been going on for more than a week, and during the first week, a large number of applicants showed up wearing sparkly white T-shirts and shorts.
However, it was noted that since Monday, January 15, 2024, everything has changed. Unlike the previous week, the Police Officers Mess reported a very small number of applicants who showed up for screening, and the number keeps going down as the week goes on.
The Bayelsa State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Musa Mohammed, stated that the command has faced difficulties due to the low application turnout. He stated that the command is unable to provide an accurate figure for the number of candidates who have finished the screening process because the exercise is still ongoing.
“So far, over a thousand candidates have been screened. Our problem is that some people haven’t shown up for their screening yet, which is causing the process to drag out.
You can also help us by informing those applicants who have not yet arrived for the police recruiting screening process that they should try to show up by January 29, 2024, he stated.
Thursday’s visit to the Police Officers Mess revealed that the screening center was empty of applicants. The setting was sparse, and the officers in charge of the screening process could be seen waiting for qualified applications.
Philip Oropadei, an applicant from Ogobiri in the state’s Sagbama local government region, showed up in plain clothes around an hour later. Oropadei stated he lost his phone a while back and was unable to access the email he was anticipating a message for the screening exercise, according to a conversation he had with LEADERSHIP Weekend following his screening.
“I am coming today because I don’t get information and I don’t have any contacts. If not, I could have done this since January 11. That was the reason I was late. I was fortunate to meet one of my neighborhood lads on Tuesday, and he informed me that he had completed his application together with me last week. I checked it out online and found that it was accurate.
I’m relieved that I completed it at last. They told me when I first arrived that before I could get help, I had to put on a white shirt and shorts. I had to return after going back to get white. I was told to make photocopies of every document I had and to store them in two different files—one for the original and another for the photocopies. I also took a picture of my passport and included it with the paperwork.
“After that, I yielded to the commanding officers.” In addition to taking my height, they questioned me and handed me some forms to complete. I was asked to leave after that. I expect that after I finish this phase, my name will be released and I’ll be called up for the exercise,” he stated.
Emmanuel Allison, a resident of Olukpobiri in the Southern Ijaw local government area, applied in 2022. He has been living in the community and learned that the screening process had already started on Monday when he returned to Yenagoa.
“I came today since I didn’t receive the information promptly. I took a picture of my passport and wanted to go get it from the photographer so I could fill out the forms they supplied me. I haven’t even submitted my documents yet. I will find out what to do next only when I have submitted everything.
“Joining the police force was not my original plan, but at this time, there is nothing I can do. In Nigeria, everyone is trying to figure out how to survive. If my name is called, I’ll attend the training and give it everything I’ve got. Despite having quit after secondary school, I still want to return. If I’m successful, I’ll train myself in school with my money, Allison declared.
Obtaining Guarantors Presents a Challenge for Applicants in Anambra Police Recruitment Obtaining police personnel with the rank necessary to serve as guarantors for applicants to the Nigeria Police in Anambra State is the main obstacle facing some of them in the ongoing nationwide recruitment drive.
Even while some of them who talked with LEADERSHIP Weekend claimed to have overcome the obstacle, they acknowledged that it was not an easy feat.
They emphasized that many of these officers who were approached declined their request out of concern that they would not be of good behavior. They stated that only police officers with the level of Superintendent of Police (SP) and above were acceptable to sign as guarantors for them.
For example, during LEADERSHIP Weekend at the state police command headquarters in Amawbia, where the state recruitment exercise is being conducted, one of the male applicants, Arinze Oyiudo, a native of Awka in the Awka-South local government area, disclosed that some police officers he had previously approached to sign as guarantors for him had declined his request.
We were informed that the two police officers who will sign as guarantors for us are those who hold the level of SP (Superintendent of Police) and higher. However, when we went to some of them, they refused to sign for us. However, he added, “I have two officers who signed for me.” In addition to obtaining the guarantors, he clarified, the recruitment team also requested his National Identity Number (NIN), birth certificate, medical fitness report, secondary school certificate (WAEC or NECO), local government identification letter, and they measured his height.
Although she was able to obtain two senior police officers to sign as guarantors for her, Miss Ubadiah Karima, a native of Nzam in the Anambra-West local government area of the state, stated that she did not obtain the officers easily since not all of them consented to sign when she contacted them.
She clarified, however, that neither the police officers who declined to sign on her behalf nor the ones who did so requested money or any other kind of special treatment from her in exchange for accepting or refusing the request.
Screening Of Police Recruits Ongoing In Rivers
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in Rivers State is conducting a physical and credential screening exercise for recruits. The program started on January 8, 2024, and will conclude on January 29, 2024.
The Alfred Dite-Spiff Civic Center, located on Moscow Road near the state police headquarters in Port Harcourt, is the location of the exercise.
Some of the applicants who had already undergone screening characterized the process as tiresome in interviews with LEADERSHIP Weekend.
They claimed that because all applicants were required by force headquarters to travel to their respective states for the exercise, only people from Rivers State took part in it.
“I applied for the Police job in Asaba, Delta State, but since I’m from Rivers State, I was told to come to Port Harcourt for the screening exercise,” one of them stated.
Every day at 8 a.m., we would arrive and stay until roughly 4 p.m. You come back the next day if you weren’t fortunate enough to be screened that day. Among other documents, they sought proof of an applicant’s good character from the head of their village or district, original and duplicate copies of the certificate of origin duly signed by the chairman or secretary of the local government, and proof of physical and mental fitness from a government-recognized medical facility.
Speaking with our correspondent as well, another applicant who wished to remain anonymous bemoaned having to spend days sleeping at the exercise location because many of them did not have family residing in Port Harcourt.
Since none of my friends or I have relatives in Port Harcourt, we spent the night at the civic center. My parents currently reside in Ibadan, the city from which I am from. We were short on cash to cover our lodging expenses. However, I think that all of our pain won’t be in vain,” he remarked.
Work Out Without Any Hitch in Akwa Ibom
Checks conducted by LEADERSHIP Weekend showed that the hiring process, which is scheduled to conclude on January 29, has gone smoothly and without a hitch, with over 6,000 candidates having already been examined in Akwa Ibom State. Aside from the flood of applications that police officers struggled to manage to prevent a stampede, the exercise at the state headquarters in Ikot Akpanabia, close to Uyo, the state capital, went well because only those who were found through the Police Recruitment Portal were vetted and approved to participate in the regimental exercise.
One of the applicants, Aniekan Bassey, stated, “The exercise is smooth and orderly; the only hitch is having to wait a few days for your turn to be called out to undergo the process.”
Enobobong Bassey, an additional applicant, stated, “We prepared ourselves for the job and have not recorded any casualties as a result of the exercise so far.”
SP Odiko MacDon, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), clarified, however, that the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Police Service Commission (PSC), and other pertinent authorities’ recruiting rules had been closely adhered to.
Exams conducted at the Police Officers’ Mess on Factory Road in Umuahia, the exercise location, revealed that over 1,400 of the 2,110 applicants had already undergone screening and uploading.
Subsequent investigations showed that two applicants from outside the state were referred to the state for the exercise, while the three applicants from other states who showed up were returned to their home states.
Three of the screening applicants—two men and one woman—who wished to remain anonymous at LEADERSHIP Weekend thought the process went well and in a well-organized manner.
A male candidate stated that he “traveled from the North” and that it took him less than 40 minutes “to complete the process.” Employees from the Police Service Commission and the Federal Character Commission were keeping a close eye on the practice.
24,851 people apply for police recruitment in Borno despite the insurgency.
The state Police Command stated that it is interviewing 24,851 candidates from the state’s 27 local government areas, despite the ten-year Boko Haram conflict in Borno.
Police officers in large numbers paid the ultimate price of the crisis at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency, according to LEADERSHIP Weekend, as the jihadists targeted them and other security personnel in different parts of the state.
As the applicants poured in to be vetted by the officers in charge of the exercise, the state’s Police Command headquarters and its annex are a hive of activity. Abu Mohammed, a candidate from the Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, expressed hope that he would be selected based on the objective screening process he had observed, even with a large number of candidates.
He stated that his primary motivation for joining the Nigeria Police Force is to do his part to combat the insecurity that has long held the nation behind.
In a similar vein, Abubakar Shani, a candidate from the southern Shani local government region of the state, endorsed his fellow applicant’s assessment of the screening process, characterizing it as impartial and free.
Speaking about the exercise, ASP Daso Nahum, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), stated that the state received a large number of applications that praised it as beneficial to the state.
The PPRO stated that without the assistance of other entities, including ad hoc personnel, state government representatives, and a delegation from the Federal Character Commission, who helped with the applicants’ physical and credential screening, the exercise would have been an enormous undertaking.
He stated that more than 300 applications were hired during the most recent round of hiring, and given the large number of applicants, he expressed hope that this year’s hiring total may exceed last year’s.
Candidates for Delta Have Housing Issues
At the Delta State command in Asaba, the continuous screening process for potential police constable recruits began on January 8 and will conclude on January 29, 2024.
Candidates who claimed they had been advised not to speak to the media kept their mouths shut, but they revealed outside the screening area that they had printed out their invitation slips and showed up for screening every day at 7 a.m. at the Cenotaph Parade Ground in Asaba on the day that was specified on the printout.
They claimed that to prevent punishment, the environment demands strict discipline. Thus, they obeyed the directive to show up wearing their white T-shirts and shorts, carrying two white flat files containing recent passport photos, proof of physical and mental health from a medical facility recognized by the government, and a letter of recommendation from the applicant’s village/district head attesting to their good character.
The others are the invitation slip, the original and duplicate copies of credentials, the certificate of origin duly signed by the chairman or secretary of the local government, the National Identity Number (NIN) Slip Print-out, the birth certificate or declaration of age, the application form print-out, the duly completed guarantor’s form, and the original and duplicate copies of credentials.
They claim that certain candidates were not considered for screening because they did not provide some of the required materials. An additional candidate from Rivers State was asked to travel to Port Harcourt for screening but was not screened.
They all agreed that the physical activity and screening had not been overly taxing, except for the fact that some of them, who were from remote local government regions, had trouble finding accommodations.
The commissioner of police for Delta State Command, CP Wale Abass, revealed that they were cautioned to be on the lookout for online imposters, fraudsters, and other criminal elements who might try to take advantage of the recruitment process to defraud innocent applicants, despite ruling out the godfathers’ factor and optimism of admission having qualified in all the areas, especially height measurement and medical reports.
“They informed us that the entire training will be carried out in compliance with the force’s professional guidelines and that it is free,” the applicant disclosed
