Publication Details
Abstract
This paper is an analysis of the impact of political patronage pressures on recruitment, promotion and internal security performance of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) from 2015 to 2025. The study is qualitative and documentary in nature and relies on official documents of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Nigeria Police Force, Afrobarometer surveys and peer-reviewed policing and public-administration literature as well as the National Security Strategy of Nigeria. The analytical framework is taken from Weberian Bureaucratic Theory. The study is guided by two propositions: The first is that patronage pressures and institutional contestation undermine merit-based recruitment and promotion by making procedures less transparent and less fair and less rewarding for professional careers. The second suggests that weak human resource governance has a negative impact on the internal security performance by reducing competence, morale, organisational legitimacy and the public's willingness to cooperate with the police. The results indicate that formal rules focus on merit, seniority, transparency, federal character and redress, but there were recurring governance pressure points: the 2017 claims of payments for special promotion; the PSC–NPF recruitment saga, which went all the way to the Supreme Court; the controversial 2024 constable list; and the official warnings about promotion lobbying in 2025. These episodes are not evidence of systematic political capture, but are indications of the weaknesses in personnel governance. The study finds that the professional policing needs are not just for more recruitment but also for transparent selection, auditable promotion, institutional role clarity and credible accountability of personnel decisions to public-security outcomes.