The Police Service Commission has said that it will remove the names of candidates who did not participate in the recruitment process for 10,000 constables, but whose names were added to the final list by the police high command.
The board explained that a genuine list would be released after the strange names on the list had been weeded out.
A PSC Commissioner, Mr Austin Braimoh, confirmed to Saturday PUNCH that the candidates’ list that was released by the force was “polluted.”
It was gathered that the names of genuine candidates were replaced with those who did not participate in the exercise.
A former workers’ union chairman at the police service commission, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he knew some candidates who performed very well in the examinations but whose names were allegedly removed during the medical screening by the police over their inability to pay huge bribes.
He said, “I know a candidate in Oyo State whose name was removed during the medical screening because he had no bribe to give to the police officers who handled the exercise. I also know some candidates in Kogi and Niger states who suffered a similar fate. These are the reports we received from different states.”
The union leader explained further, “What the police authorities did was to lobby members of the National Assembly and Presidency officials, collecting names of candidates to back their wrong action.
“Those who were invited for medicals were candidates who didn’t apply for recruitment. In Niger State where I participated in the process, what they did was to add names of candidates who didn’t participate in the exercise. Their intention was to screen out the original candidates and replace them with their own people.”
The police and the commission had been engaged in a turf war over the recruitment of 10,000 constables with the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, insisting that it was the right of the force to conduct the exercise.
