ALI M. ALI on Friday
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
All Nigerians know that the game of musical chairs that saw the ascension of Muhammad Dahiru Abubakar as the new Inspector General of Police will not end crime. What makes me want to jump for joy is his record won’t exacerbate it either. It is good enough for me. For sure, Abubakar came eminently qualified for the job. He is a good cop, no doubt. A super cop, if you like. He is super because he, unlike most before him, comes to the job with one unassailable credential-INTEGRITY.
For a change, the Jonathan administration has treaded the straight and narrow path. Dealing honestly with citizens, to the present government, is like asking Boko Haram to embrace western education. The idea seems so remote as to invite the word “impossible”. The sleight of hand, unfortunately, has become a distinct quality of some elements in the present dispensation.
In just two years, the present rulers have demonstrated that they are masters of doublespeak. To be uncharitable, some of them lie through their teeth, unabashedly. Just last month, the government, like a rat, sneaked in a new fuel prize regime, three clear months ahead of time. In doing that ill advised solo run, the legislature was isolated. And this was supposedly a vibrant legislature harbouring the illusion of authority as one of the stands in the tripod of power. I imagine the consternation of our lawmakers when they, like the rest of us, were ‘assaulted’ by the new pump price of fuel on January 1. The government which some of them viewed, erroneously, as “a partner in progress”, did not so much as take them into confidence about hiking the litre price.
It was not the first time the executive arm would display this kind of sheer chicanery. A historical saunter will confirm this serial perfidy. From February, 2010 to this day, the leadership of our government has intermittently short-changed us. I, therefore, imagine advisers of the Commander –in-Chief that urged him to give us, ordinary Nigerians, in the category of hewers of wood and fetchers of water, that poisoned New Year gift, must have told him to “forget” the legislative arm. After all, if the pushing comes to a shove, our lawmakers will capitulate and ask for “constituency fund”!
It was therefore, a culture shock to me that with a reputation like this, the Jonathan administration will handpick Abubakar as the nation’s No 1 cop. For a change, it has done the right thing at the right time. It demonstrates that, after all, the president can actually lead beyond his ‘province’.
In appointing Abubakar as IG, President Jonathan, more or less, acted a la General Ibrahim Babangida. In 1993, the departing military government appointed Ibrahim Coomassie as IGP. There were rumours, naturally, that he was not the ‘preferred’ choice. In fact, NPF 01, the staff car of the police chief, had been sent to the successor of Aliyu Atta, the outgoing chief at that time. But before the break of dawn, Babangida had had a change of mind and appointed the present Sardaunan Katsina instead to the relief of those who knew Coomassie’s integrity.
Anyone with the vaguest idea of our police force knows that integrity at all levels is in short supply. To have a police boss whose only ‘blemish’ is a jaundiced report tailored to serve fixed interests qualifies for national applause. So far, nobody has thrown the “corruption” dart in the direction of the new police helmsman. It is refreshing and reassuring.
The problems of our nation’s police are legion. They reflect the deeper rot in the Nigerian society Apart from the usual suspicion of “corruption”, the rank and file of the police is assailed by the contagious virus of low self-esteem and incompetence. Over time, all manner of shadowy elements found themselves in the force. There were instances in the past when criminals were detected after they had gone through training in the process of becoming law enforcement officers. There were instances the men and women, for that matter, had aided and abetted crime.
Corruption in the rank and file of the police has become a way of life. We all remember the disgraceful end of Tafa Balogun, a former Inspector-General. He was accused of stealing N10billion of the outfit. Hand-cuffed and disgraced by a subordinate, Nuhu Ribadu, Balogun a remains a perfect personification of the rot in the force. There was another chief that diverted funds meant for the police to buy a ship to take care of his retirement. At lower levels, from the notoriety of the check-point bribe taker to the divisional officer, it the same sordid tale - police chiefs involved in all manner of crooked dealings. Dirty cops that hobnobbed with all manner of criminals.
In the mid 80s, Superintendent George Iyamu of the Anini saga earned dubious fame as the accomplice-in- chief of criminals. Until the bubble burst, Anini assumed the toga of modern day Robin Hood, all with the assistance of Iyamu.
Interestingly, the new police boss, Abubakar, was Coomassie’s Principal Staff Officer (PSO). I am in the tribe of Abubakar’s admirers. I believe he shares some things in with Coomassie. Abubakar Tsav, former commissioner of Police of Lagos state is another.Since he retired from the police, has become a critic of sorts. He is not known to be lavish with praise. He is occasionally caustic. But he has since gone to town spreading the news that Abubakar is the best thing that has happened to the police in recent times. In several well publicized press interviews, Tsav has been jumping for joy. I would want to jump for joy too. But something about the present sophistication of crime makes the shout of joy stick in the throat.
My worry is that a large number of the men he is going to lead are ‘analogue’. Nothing exposes the backwardness of the Police more than the current sophistication of crime. The dawn of Boko Haram merely worsened an already pathetic case. All Nigerians want an end to the reign of insecurity. Abubakar’s tough guy talk about Boko Haram is reassuring. The brutal truth, however, is that the Nigerian security apparatchik, including the police, is not equipped in a material or intellectual sense to deal with organized insurgency like the kind we are witnessing.
Our security operatives are too flippant, over-generous with information. The police especially appear to lack capacity in intelligence gathering. The public has learned to distrust them over time because information willingly given concerning criminals and their activities ended up in their ears in what appears a trade-off. All these may seem daunting but not worry, Abubakar’s sterling credential as one who is upright has done half the work, and the rest is to change the psyche of his men.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
