By Abdul Lauya
The aftershocks of a bold, unprecedented protest led by Sahara Reporters founder, Omoyele Sowore, are rippling through the Nigeria Police Force, triggering what many now call the most sweeping promotion drive in recent memory.
But even as cheers echo among newly promoted junior officers, deeper discontent continues to simmer beneath the surface.
In June 2025, Sowore spearheaded a high-profile demonstration that spotlighted years of stagnation, inequality, and neglect in police promotions.
His rallying cry, “Silence brought nothing. One protest forced justice”, resonated widely, sparking the viral hashtag #PoliceProtest and reigniting long-suppressed grievances within the Force.
Weeks later, the establishment responded. By July, thousands of junior officers, from constables to inspectors, began receiving long-overdue promotion letters, many of them backdated.
For officers stuck in career limbo for years, the gesture felt like vindication. Promotions that had stalled inexplicably were suddenly processed, lifting the morale of many in the rank and file.
However, the mass promotion wave, while extensive, has proven far from universal. More than 440 officers have since raised alarm, accusing the Police hierarchy of bypassing deserving senior personnel in favour of newer recruits, particularly members of the 2022 specialist intake.
General-duty officers from earlier batches, especially the 2021 cohort and those recruited as cadet inspectors in 2012, say they’ve been arbitrarily sidelined without explanation.
“I’ve served 13 years, passed all required courses, and still remain an Assistant Superintendent,” said one frustrated officer. “Meanwhile, recruits with barely two years in service are leapfrogging us.”
Officers who joined outside of the Police Academy (POLAC), including many with university degrees, allege that the so-called “merit-based” reform is laced with discrimination.
The discontent isn’t just anecdotal, it’s institutional. According to an internal communication titled “POLICE PROMOTION: IGP CORRECTS ANOMALY AND INJUSTICE”, the Force is now scrambling to fix discrepancies affecting officers who enlisted in the year 2000 but were wrongfully grouped with the 2001 batch, a bureaucratic error that denied them timely promotions for over two decades.
These officers, who should have become Assistant Superintendents of Police (ASPs) years ago, only received their promotions in 2023 or 2024.
To paper over the injustice, the Force has now backdated their promotions to June 1, 2023, a move critics describe as a face-saving measure rather than genuine accountability.
“Where was this fairness all these years?” asked one officer affected by the backdating. “It took a protest, not policy, to correct it.”
In a broader effort to restore credibility, the Police Service Commission (PSC) in September 2024 outlawed all forms of “special promotions,” mandating that rank progression be strictly tied to competitive exams.
Officers who fail three consecutive times now risk being retired at their current rank. While many applauded the reform as overdue, concerns persist that favoritism, backdoor deals, and selective enforcement continue to undermine the system.
For Sowore, the protest is only the beginning. “This is just the start,” he posted after news of the promotions broke. “We shook the system, and it blinked. Now we push further.”
Whether that push will lead to lasting institutional reform, or amount to yet another cosmetic fix, remains uncertain.
For hundreds of sidelined officers, the struggle for fairness and transparency within the Nigeria Police Force is far from over.
