A member of the House of Representatives, and chairman of the committee on navy, Yusuf Gagdi, has debunked the erroneous misconception that one of his sponsored Bills before the house intended a fixed tenure for an Inspector General of the Nigerian police.
The lawmaker from Plateau state sponsored the Police Service Commission Act Amendment and Repeal bill, as well as the National Institute of Police studies establishment bill, public hearing on which was recently held in the House of Representatves.
Speaking during an engagement with journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, Gagdi insisted that none of those bills mentioned the tenure of Inspector General of Police (IGP). “I think there is a great misconception about that. There has never been any bill about the tenure of the Inspector General of Police. I think we didn’t do our due diligence, otherwise, if we do our research very well, you will discover that there is nothing like that.
“The bills that came up for public hearings were two bills, one the Police Service Commission Amendment and Repeal talked about adjusting the power tussle between the Police Service Commission and the Police Force itself, where over the years, the powers to recruit were vested on the Nigerian police Force and that has always been the tradition Even the National Assembly budget funds for recruitment to the Nigerian Police Force not to the Police Service Commission.
“Then the problem between the Police Service Commission and the Police created a problem to Nigerians. Annually, Police is expected to recruit 10,000 Constables but because there is a case in court, the approved recruitment stopped and I now said since there is a legal gap between the Police Service Commission Act as well as the operations of the Nigerian police itself, there is a need for us to clear all the ambiguity…”, the lawmaker explained.
He stressed further that training colleges of recruit police constables belong to the Police Force and that suddenly, the litigation exposed the existing lacuna. My concern as a parliamentarian, a trained lawmaker, a peacemaker, maybe a student of security and strategic studies and I have interest in police reform, was why I took all those bills to the National Assembly.”, he said.
According to him, the referred tenure of an IGP suggestion was contained in the amended Police Act, which President Muhammadu Buhari has already signed into law, and nothing related to such is currently before the house.
