The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, says no officer will descend so low to protest non-implementation of salary increment because they are aware of the implications.
HE made this statement while reacting to a media report on Monday that officers were planning to embark on a protest on March 26 to demand an increment in their salaries and allowances.
The Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, had, last year, said the implementation of the new salary package for police officers would start by January this year, but that has not happened.
The IGP, in a statement yesterday by the Acting Force Spokesman, Muyiwa Adejobi, said, ‘’It is pertinent to restate that the Nigeria Police Force is a regimented and disciplined organization with laid down rules and guidelines for addressing grievances and in no circumstance is a strike action one of such means.
‘’The men and women of the Nigeria Police Force are fully aware that a strike action or other deliberate disruption of law enforcement services by any security organization is mutinous and the personnel of the Force would not degenerate at any point to that level of disloyalty and indiscipline, as policing services are paramount and essential in the maintenance of orderliness and peace in the nation.
He described the report of the planned protest by officers as an “attempt by unscrupulous individuals to bring the Force to disrepute, misinform the general public and heat up the polity.”
“Since that approval, the Salaries and Wages Commission has issued an implementation circular, the Honourable Minister of Police Affairs and the IGP have been working with the Federal Inland Revenue Service to ensure the stoppage of tax deductions as directed by the president and approved by the Federal Executive Council,” he said.
The statement added: “It is important to accentuate that it was the president’s initiative without any demand from the Police to direct the process of increasing salaries and allowances.
“The Federal Government is therefore fully committed to the implementation of the new salary package.”