The recruitment of 10,000 personnel into the Nigeria Police Force has been put on hold over alleged irregularities, Daily Trust has reported.
The recruitment was already underway when it was discovered that the criteria initially set for the exercise had been abandoned.
The Police Service Commission, which is coordinating the recruitment, put it on hold following an order from the Senate Police Committee.
The commission meanwhile, had shortlisted 110, 469 applicants for aptitude tests across the country.
The applicants to write the exams included Cadet ASPs, 22,454, comprising 10,290 general duties and 12,164 specialists.
The committee, however, gave an order suspending the recruitment in a letter it wrote to the commission on Thursday, sources said.
The letter was also copied to President Muhammadu Buhari to draw his attention to the alleged irregularities.
It would be recalled that the president gave the order for the recruitment of 10,000 policemen over a year ago.
When the recruitment was set to commence in August, it was agreed among stakeholders that applicants would be selected based on local government areas.
But sources said the recruitment exercise ran into troubled waters when the PSC decided to base the exercise on equal number per state, citing orders from above.
The U-turn by the commission angered other stakeholders, who demanded that it should restrict itself to the recruitment of cadet ASPs, which is its statutory responsibility.
They said the Force Headquarters should handle the enlistment of those on inspectorate cadre and below.
But when contacted yesterday, the spokesman of the PSC, Ikechukwu Ani, said the recruitment exercise had not been suspended.
He added that the exercise was still on, explaining that the officials of the commission just finished a field exercise on the recruitment process.
Mr. Ani also noted that the commission had been partnering with the police on the recruitment into both the constable and senior officers’ cadre.
