The attention of the Federal Road Safety Corps has been drawn to a publication by Daily Trust Newspaper with the caption; “Promotion Racket Rocks Road Safety”, published on Friday, 28 January, 2022 on its front page and online platform. This is a complete misrepresentation of facts in the Corps.

Having gone through the content of the publication, it has become necessary to clarify the disinformation and falsehood in the story, which regrettably mischaracterised the FRSC.

The allegations in the story show how grossly uninformed the author about the guidelines for promotion in the Corps and we wonder what else could have motivated the publication, if not maliciousness and sheer mischief to cast aspersion on the positive image of the Corps.

FRSC is guided by the principle that the purpose of promotion is for the advancement or upliftment of deserving officers who have met the necessary statutory requirements for promotion as defined by a combination of extant regulatory documents like the Public Service Rules, FRSC Conditions of Service, FRSC Scheme of Service, and the FRSC Promotion Policy as approved by the Commission.

The criteria for promotion to the next rank in FRSC are:

1. He/She must have satisfied the requirement of 3 or 4years waiting period as applicable on rank. This provision excludes officers transiting from Assistant Corps Marshal to Deputy Corps Marshal (ACM to DCM) which is based on availability of vacancies in any of the six geo-political zones of the Federation. It is noteworthy to realize that the  Corps has 6 DCMs only,  each representing the 6 Geo-political Zone. This means that apart from ACM to DCM. Others must observe statutory waiting period and can only be qualified for promotion after the required period is met; and

2. The Officer must be free of any disciplinary case(s).

Contrary to the author’s claim, all promotions in the Corps are based on merit, Federal Character principle and availability of vacancies as approved by the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation on yearly basis. Promotion exercise in the Corps is jointly conducted with representatives from the Federal Character Commission, The Board of the Federal Road Safety Commission.

Stating the above has become utterly important to register the transparent and objective nature of FRSC promotion exercise to the minds of the public. This is because, the five states mentioned, namely Rivers, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Yobe, and Sokoto alleged to be sidelined as at the time of compilation of the promotion list, do not have a single personnel that is eligible enough to participate in the promotion exercise because none of the senior officers from those States has completed the mandatory and statutory waiting period.

That been said, it is important to also state, for the sake of clarity, that the States that were alleged to have been favoured which include; Imo, Edo, Enugu, Oyo and Ebonyi all have candidates who met the necessary requirements for the promotion before they were considered for the promotion exercise.

As a media friendly organisation, the Corps wishes to applaud the watchdog role of the press which has over the years entrenched transparency and accountability in public service. However, it will not be wise to end this clarification without entreating the members of the media to always balance their reportage by seeking clarifications appropriately.