Nigerian Police Threaten Strike

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Some police inspectors and rank and file from the Imo State Police Command have threatened to take strike over their redeployment for some violence-prone states in the North. The aggrieved policemen who met in Benin, the Edo State capital, said they would start the strike in November.

However the Force headquarters has said that the   redeployment won't be revisited or changed and warned the affected officers against blackmailing law enforcement authorities.

Continue after the break.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, who had been reacting to the threat of a hit by some policemen in Imo State Police Command, said that the Nigeria Police Force was a national organisation where police personnel could possibly be deployed to serve in virtually any area of the country.
Mba, who spoke over the device on Wednesday, described the reported threat by the policemen as a rumour, adding that the exact same rumour was peddled when some policemen were transferred out of Lagos.

Some policemen that were redeployed for some northern states had threatened to embark on strike in November if their demands were  not addressed.
They certainly were demanding the reversion of the mass transfer of officers numbering about 100 from the cadre of Inspectors, Assistant Superintendent of Police and the Chief Superintendent of Police to the troubled areas in the North.

The officers alleged that their transfer which they called punitive, was masterminded by the Imo State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Muhammad Katsina, adding that many of them had stagnated on a rank for several years without promotion.
But Mba faulted the position of the protesting officers. He explained that they could not choose where they would serve, noting that the policemen in the North had the maximum amount of right as those in Imo State to serve in virtually any area of the country.

“The Nigeria Police Force is really a national police, not just a state civil service or a state police force. The implication is that you can be asked to serve in virtually any area of the country, and as a police, there isn't the proper to select where you should serve or when to serve. It is really a call to service. The benefits of being fully a police comes with the burden of discharging the responsibilities mounted on becoming an officer and you can't choose the advantages and reject the responsibilities,” he said.