President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday decorated Abubakar Adamu Mohammed as acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), against speculations that he may extend the tenure of Ibrahim Idris, outgoing IGP, who has attained the mandatory 35 years in service or retirement age of 60.
Even though the newly-decorated IGP has assured Nigerians of a level playing ground in the 2019 general elections, not all Nigerians believe he would keep to his assurances.
“We are going to stick by the rules, we are going to do the right thing. We will not go outside the ethics of our job to do things that are untoward; everybody will be given level playing ground to play his or her politics,” IGP Mohammed said while briefing State House Correspondents in Abuja shortly after he was decorated by President Buhari.
“On the elections, you have heard from the former IGP, adequate arrangement has been made to make sure that free and fair and credible elections take place in Nigeria. We are going to build up on the strategies put in place to make sure that we have hitch-free elections in the country,” he said.
But some analysts who spoke to BusinessDay yesterday said the appointment once again highlighted President Buhari’s penchant for ignoring due process in selecting IGPs.
This view comes against the backdrop that to appoint Adamu Mohammed, President Buhari by-passed seven well-trained, exposed and tested Deputy Inspectors-General of Police who may be forced to go compulsory retirement. The affected DIGs include Joshak Habila, in charge of Department of Operations; Maigari Abatti Dikko, who heads Department of Logistics and Supply; H. M. Dagala, of Department of Criminal Intelligence and Investigations, and Emmanuel Inyang, who is in charge of Department of Training and Development. Others are Shuaibu Gambo, who heads Department of Finance and Administration; Ntom Chukwu of Department of Research and Planning, and Foluso Adebanjo, in charge of Department of Information and Communication Technology.
Recall that a similar scenario played out in March 2016 when Ibrahim Idris, until then a commissioner of police who supervised the security apparatus for the controversial presidential election of 2015 in Kano, where President Buhari got nearly 2 million votes, was promoted to Assistant Inspector General (AIG) and then named the acting Inspector General of Police to take over from Solomon Arase. In that case, 21 DIGs had to be compulsorily retired.
“It’s an unfortunate incident. It’s a waste of natural resources expended on the training of those officers. It’s clear the criteria this present government applies in choosing IGP have to do with other considerations that are not visible to the people, which are obviously beyond professionalism and merit system,” Opeyemi Agbaje, CEO of RTC Advisory Services, said.
Agbaje explained that the new pattern of appointing police chiefs will erode team work and professionalism in the police because it will entice police officers to become favoured godsons to politicians, which, he said, is a negative development.
Timothy Olawale, director-general, Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), was more concerned about the position of the law than the personality appointed.
“It’s the prerogative of the president to appoint whosoever he wishes among the senior echelon of the Nigeria Police to assume that position. The law did not say it must be the next person in line,” Olawale told BusinessDay by phone. “It’s unfortunate the appointment of both the outgoing IGP and recent IGP is claiming causalities of forced retirement.”
Security experts are hard put to explain if the evolving scenario will affect the much-awaited change in the force, a change which many are clamouring for that will usher a new era where the hydra-headed monster of corruption would be grossly checkmated in the force.
On its part, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the acting IGP to immediately commence the re-engineering of the Nigeria Police to restore professionalism and adherence to rules of engagement in the Force.
In a statement on Tuesday, Kola Ologbondiyan, director, Media & Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organization, described the outgone police boss, Ibrahim Idris, as the worst police boss in the nation’s history, adding that he must be held accountable for all the atrocities he committed while in office.
“The PDP, therefore, urges the new police boss to learn a lesson from the shameful end of Idris as IGP by immediately setting up the process of re-orientating and insulating the Force from partisan politics, while subjecting it to the tenets of democracy and the rule of law,” Ologbondiyan said.
Until his appointment, the Nasarawa State-born Adamu Mohammed, an AIG by rank, was a directing staff member at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, near Jos, Plateau State. A one-time director of peacekeeping operations, he has served with the United Nations and INTERPOL, was formerly police commissioner in Enugu, an AIG in charge of Zone 5 Benin, Edo State, and formerly deputy commissioner of Police (DCP) in Ekiti State.
