IGP’s Committee Review Forces Over 340 Police Officers Into Retirement

According to reports, after their tenure was reviewed by a disciplinary commission, more than 340 officers from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) decided to resign.
According to reports, this decision was made before the committee, which was established by Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun, submitted its final report.
The committee was assisted in the screening process by the Force Management and met Monday through Tuesday at the Force’s headquarters in Louis Edet House, Abuja.

Although it is still unknown whether possible punishments had an impact on the officers’ retirement decisions, sources close to the committee attested to their departure.

According to reports, these officers, many of them were over 60 or had served for more than 35 years, had not carried out their retirement arrangements when they were supposed to.

Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) Benneth Igweh, who was in charge of Zone 7, two Commissioners of Police, and a top police lawyer were among those called for review.

The Nation said that it was verified that AIG Igweh had formally transferred his duties to Mohammed Gumel, his replacement.

The officers who were supposed to have retired since 2020 but had not done so for a variety of reasons—such as moving from rank-and-file to senior officer posts without completing the required training at the police academy—were the focus of the committee.

By Tuesday, the committee had finished its evaluation, and more than 340 officers had filed their retirements, according to a person with knowledge of the screening procedure.

They are mostly senior officers. People who know they were meant to depart last year have already gone. I don’t know if anyone received a penalty.

The committee and the force management team were permitted to participate in the officer screening process.

They are the ones who were expected to have retired between 2020 and the present. Although they didn’t change their age, the majority of them skipped the police academy and went from being rank and file to senior cops.

The regulation states that you must quit as a rank-and-file officer in order to advance to the position of senior officer. However, the majority of them didn’t. The two levels were where they were working.

According to the source, “they have a retirement age as constables and a retirement age as senior officers or commissioned officers.”

In addition, senior officers who had served more than 35 years or reached the age of 60 were previously required to retire immediately by the Police Service Commission (PSC).

The decision was reexamined following a previous plenary meeting in 2017, which resulted in a change of the retirement standards, according to Ikechukwu Ani, PSC’s Head of Press and Public Relations.

In a statement following their meeting on January 31, 2025, the PSC confirmed that the policy went against previous regulations and now mandated that all officials who met the age or service standards retire right away.

Read Also: JUST IN: PDP Links APC Official to Alleged Forgery in Udeh-Okoye Ruling

The Inspector-General of Police was informed of the ruling and instructed to take appropriate measures.

IGP Egbetokun’s tenure extension by President Bola Tinubu raised some concerns about the timing of these retirements, but Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), the Attorney-General of the Federation, stressed that the President’s actions were legal.