THE National Industrial Court (NIC) Wednesday annulled a regulation of the Nigeria Police Force that prohibits unmarried female personnel from getting pregnant.
The annulled Regulation 127 of the Nigeria Police Regulation made pursuant to the Police Establishment Act 2020 provides for the dismissal of any unmarried policewoman who gets pregnant.
The presiding judge, the Honourable Justice D. K. Damulak, in a landmark judgement on Wednesday at the Akure Division of the NIC held that the police regulation is “discriminatory, illegal, null and void.”
Justice Damulak further held that the regulation “violates section 42 of the (Nigerian) constitution and article 2 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights Ratification and Enforcement Act which abolished discrimination on basis of gender.”
According to Justice Damulak, “the court…finds and holds that the provision of Section 127 of the Police Act and Regulation 127 thereof, which applies to unmarried women police officers getting pregnant while in service but does not apply to unmarried male police officers impregnating females while they are in service, are discriminatory against unmarried women police officers by Section 1(3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended.”
Setting the grounds for quashing the regulation, Justice Damulak also held that “if any law is inconsistent with the provision of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of its inconsistency be void.”
The judge awarded aggravated damages of N5 million for the violation of the claimant’s fundamental right to freedom from discrimination, but however refused the claimant’s request for reinstatement into the police holding that the claimant’s dismissal could not be reversed as she was on probation at the time of her sack from the Nigeria Police Force.
It will be recalled that Miss Omolola Olajide of the Ekiti Police Command was dismissed on January 26, 2021 by Mohammed Adamu, the then Inspector-General of Police, for getting pregnant while being single.
In her statement of claim filed in court, Miss Olajide averred that the reason given for her “disengagement” in a signal sent to the Divisional Police Officer in charge of her station in Iye-Ekiti on January 20, 2021, “was that I contravened regulation 127 made pursuant to the Police Act against women getting pregnant before marriage and consequently dismissed.”
She further averred that she was phoned by the DPO Iye-Ekiti, Humphrey Ogbu, a deputy superintendent of police, on January 21, 2021, informing her to be at the Nigeria Police Medical Service, Ekiti State Command, Cottage Hospital, Ado Ekiti, to undergo a medical test.
“That I went for the test alongside one ASP Dauda Jimoh who collected the original copy of the result of the medical test on behalf of the defendants.”
According to her, the medical test conducted on her at the Police Medical Service, Ekiti State Command, “was done after the signal of my dismissal was already issued and sent out by the 1st defendant (the police).”
“All police documents in my possession were also to be retrieved with immediate effect and my salary stopped,” she added.
The claimant lamented that she was “never invited for interrogation or question by the defendants” before her dismissal.
