Nigeria Content Online

Indication emerged on Tuesday that about half of those who picked forms to join the police are barely literate.

Olabisi Okuwobi,
Police Public Relations Officer, Oyo state command, who gave the hint
in Ibadan yesterday, expressed dismay that almost 50 per cent of the
applicants screened in the command headquarters could seldom read or
write simple English, while many among them could not even spell their
names. “Even with the presentation of their school certificate with
credit in English, they could neither read nor write,” Ms Okuwobi said.

The police
spokesperson, also a member of the five-member screening panel for the
applicants in the state, declared that a number of the applicants who
are ‘half-literates’ stand disqualified. “Police force is not a dumping
ground for educational delinquencies,” she said. “We asked them to read
simple English in the dailies they could not, some of them even failed
to write or spell correctly their names.” Assuring that the police
would do a thorough job in screening all the applicants, she described
as unfortunate the fact that a number of them were not qualified,
wondering how they got their results in the first instance.

“Even those who passed through the screening will still undergo
written text to further clarify their competence,” she said, adding
that the police would also verify the certificates of those who pass
the written tests from their acclaimed examination bodies for
clearance. Speaking with journalists, the state commissioner of police,
Baba Adisa Bolanta, expressed satisfaction with the large turnout of
young Nigerians for enlistment into the police, describing it as a good
omen for the future of the country and the profession.