Nigeria’s Police Service Commission (PSC) Friday placed the ongoing process of recruitment of Constables into the Nigeria Police Force on hold.

“The Commission wishes to put the on-going exercise on hold in order to finalize the remaining stage of the exercise,” Nigeria Police Commission spokesman Ikechukwu Ani said in a statement.

“Candidates are to wait for further directives from the Commission.”

Nigeria’s police inspector general Mohammed Adamu Thursday announced the government’s plan to recruit 40,000 Community Police Constables across the federation as part of the measures to strengthen community policing in the country.

“Each of the 774 council areas in the country will have a minimum of 50 constables to strengthen security at the local levels,” Adamu said.

He said that the idea of community policing was to involve all stakeholders in the onerous task of crime reduction in Nigeria.

With the recruitment on hold, Ani urged all the candidates who participated in the recruitment exercise up to the aptitude test level to ignore any list or information on the exercise emanating from outside sources.

He said the decision to put the recruitment of Nigerians into the Police Force whether as Constables, Cadet Inspectors or Cadet ASPs on hold is a constitutional responsibility of the commission.

Ani stated that “the Commission will resist any attempt to ambush the on-going recruitment exercise or dilute its content. It notes that such an attempt will be an affront on the Constitution and a waste of national resources.”

He enjoined applicants for recruitment into the Constable Cadre of the Nigeria Police Force to exercise some patience as the commission finalises the remaining stage of the recruitment exercise.