The Nigerian Senate and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris have been locked in a battle of wits in recent weeks over the appropriateness of the Senate summons on the IGP.
It all began when the Senate, on April 25, invited the IGP to appear before its plenary to explain the circumstances surrounding the arrest of one of them, Dino Melaye, and the incessant killings across the country and the seeming inability of the police to halt the killings. The Senators only gave the IGP a 24-hour notice though. The IGP sent his deputy and later released a statement that he was on an official assignment with the President in Bauchi. The Senate denied his deputy appearance. The Senate subsequently gave him a week’s notice in which he failed to appear and after he failed to appear a third time on Wednesday May 9, the Senate accused the IGP of disrespect for snubbing its summons and declared him an enemy of democracy and unfit to hold any public office.
“The Senate in a closed session deliberated on the non-appearance of the IGP to the senate to the plenary after a series of invitation. The Senate noted that this has been a gross disrespect to our constituted authority and to also know that his earlier refusal to appear before investigative committee was overruled by competent court of jurisdiction just in April this year.
“The Senate therefore views this persistent refusal as a great danger to our democracy and hence the Senate resolved to declare IGP as an enemy of democracy and not fit to hold any public office within and outside Nigeria. The leader of the Senate would also mandate to look into the matter for further necessary action,” Mr Saraki said in a statement thereafter.
The IGP, Ibrahim Idris, on his part, said he failed to appear before the red chamber because he found no reason to do so, having learnt that the invitation was “a deliberate blackmail, witch-hunting, unfortunate and mischievous” on the part of senators.
But the very survival of democratic governance rests on the rule of law and supremacy of the constitution. The Senate, regardless of the people running the institution and their idiosyncrasies, remains a critical unit of the second arm of government constitutionally assigned the important function of oversight. All elected and appointed government officials therefore, including the President, are duty bound to respect its resolutions and summons.
We have noted the penchant of the IGP, the supposed Chief Law officer of the federation, to disrespect and disregard legitimate authority. In January 2018, the president ordered the IGP to relocate to Benue state following deadly attacks on villages there, but the IGP barely spent two days there before relocating to neighbouring Nassarawa state and from there back to Abuja. Over a month later, it was a shocked president who told a shocked nation that Idris flouted his order. The next day, the State House released a statement saying the IGP was summoned and queried by the President. But the IGP fired back instantly saying he was never summoned and challenged administration officials who issued the statement to show evidence of his being queried. The presidency has remained quiet on that matter ever since.
The import of these for presidential authority and Nigeria’s democracy is clear: president Buhari is increasingly losing the ability to perform the functions of the president, and as more appointed and elective officials realise this, they will seek to ruthlessly exploit the vacum to pursue their own personal/selfish interests with little or no regard for other arms of government leading to confusion, anarchy and the proliferation of grand corruption. This cannot be good for the country!
