Police Service Commission upsets the applecart

The news that the Police Service Commission (PSC) had upturned the decision of the President to extend the service of a police officer that was serving as his Chief Personal Security Officer (CPSO) for not following due process caught me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting the challenge to come from any of the commissions supervising […]

The news that the Police Service Commission (PSC) had upturned the decision of the President to extend the service of a police officer that was serving as his Chief Personal Security Officer (CPSO) for not following due process caught me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting the challenge to come from any of the commissions supervising the uniformed services. But I have always had a sneaking feeling that this gravy train of extension of services is bound to reach a terminus, when some courageous public servants not only raised a furore, but actually would go ahead to throw spanners in the works.

I recall that when the news of this particular episode of extending the service of the CPSO became public sometimes in 2019, it caused an uproar for the simple reason that the said officer is bound by a condition of service that casts retirement in stone: 35 years of service and or 60 years of age. Overstaying beyond creates hosts of unending establishment and pension rigmarole for the commissions to sort out. But because there had been a series of such extensions and a pattern had developed, nothing came out of the uproar. Only silence.

Readers might recall that at the beginning of this administration, the extension bonanza began surreptitiously in 2016 when a lady federal permanent secretary had her service extended at the point of retirement, as she reached the age of 60. Despite protestations, she remained in the service and to rub salt into the public injury, she was privileged to have another extension for another year. May be buoyed up by the success of that some months later, seven other permanent secretaries, who were due to retire, had their services extended. In any case, by then, the gale of extension had grown and had also reached the uniformed men. The services of the top echelons of the Armed Forces were the next to be extended and became a routine year in, year out, until many thought they might stay till the kingdom come.

Things just went haywire. Just any chief who wanted an extension of service got it. The heads of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) Nigeria Correction Service (NCS), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) all had extensions for varying months/years. One needn’t had any clairvoyant senses to realise that these service extensions bonanzas were causing a terrible dampening of zeal in the services.  The worst part of this penchant for service extension was that other arms of government also became copycats. The staff in the National Assembly decided to attempt their own version of the extension. The Clerk of the National Assembly tried to thwart his retirement and some of his colleagues, by getting the 8th Assembly to pass a bill that would have extended their retirement age to ‘65 years or 40 years of service, whichever comes first’. It was obviously self-serving and fortunately, good sense prevailed in the new 9th Assembly and the matter was adroitly killed.

Most of those that have served in the public service would tell you that due to the immense powers domiciled in the hands of the president and the governors, the likely chances of abuse were high, unless relevant institutions flexed their muscles to do some checkmating. In many cases, you might not be talking of extension of service, but it could be dismissal from the service or unmerited appointments and promotions. There are many cases of state governors dismissing public servants without due process. I recall that in the early days of this democratic dispensation, a governor of one of the north eastern states dismissed a large number of permanent secretaries without due process. Nobody could stand up for them and as the last option, they went to court. Many of them languished and died in the struggle for equity but in the end, justice was delivered. Some years later, those who survived were reinstated and their backlog of salaries were paid.

Another incidence that readily comes to mind was what I witnessed, sometimes in the late 1980s, during the military era, when I was serving as a permanent secretary in the Governor’s office in Maiduguri. The Brigade Commander was holding the fort as acting governor and wanted to use the opportunity to mete out punishment on a senior government official with whom he had altercation months back during the Hajj operations. He directed that the officer should be dismissed. When he was told that only the Civil Service Commission had such powers, he directed that they should be instructed to do so. He probably didn’t understand that disciplinary matters in the public service were complicated matters requiring processes to establish the veracity of offence before punishment. It was only a patient and persuasive explanation by the Secretary to Military Government and Head of Service that disposed of the matter and saved the officer from summary justice.

The Police Service Commission has now set the trailblazing by this exceptional act, which all lovers of astute public service should applaud. We hope other institutions such as the Civil Service Commissions, at both the federal and state levels, plus all the other commissions regulating other public services would take a cue from the singular courage of the PSC and do the needful whenever such cases arise.