It is now very clear that the peremptory sack Tuesday of the
inspector-general of the Nigerian police by President Goodluck Jonathan
was not because of any overriding public interest, but it was all in
connection with the 2015 election and a beaten president baying for
scapegoats.Suleiman Abba, Nigeria’s police chief until yesterday, joined the police force as cadet inspector in December 1984. He was appointed acting Inspector General in August last year. He has replaced by Head of the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department Deputy IG Solomon Arase.
Like most dismissals of key officers by a sitting president, there was no single explanation offered by President Jonathan yesterday, except that Abba was sacked with ‘immediate effect’.
Political pundits have been busy since yesterday piecing together the jigsaw: what could have led Jonathan sack his police chief, the way the head of a military junta would have done it?
One clear reason was that Jonathan felt betrayed by Abba for not playing the script of rigging Jonathan back into office. Except in the notorious states of Akwa Ibom and Rivers, the police generally played a neutral role in the elections.
In previous elections, even as recent as Ekiti and Osun state elections, the police were used to arrest opposition politicians on the eve of the elections, to give an unfair advantage to politicians of the PDP.
There were no such arrests in the general elections, no police collusion with the PDP agents to distort the polls.
On Saturday, TheNation newspaper had reported grumblings within Jonathan’s circle that Abba be dealt with for not making poll rigging possible, leading to the thrashing of the party in many parts of the country.
Reports said Abba had given out instructions to police commissioners and DPOs not to carry out any duty not ordered directly from his office, a decision that appears to have caught PDP unprepared for the implications: its worst, first ever electoral thrashing in the country since 1999.
Though the PDP has been sulking, the action of Abba has earned the Nigerian police plaudits from the United States. Its ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle has commended the Nigerian Police for exemplary performance in providing security for the general elections.
Entwistle, who spoke during a visit to the office of the IGP on Monday at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, noted that the police, alongside other security forces and the civil society, did a remarkable job in providing an enabling environment for the credibility of the elections.
In the course of keeping the police out of the shenanigans of the politicians on poll matters, Abba also reportedly ran into collision with President Jonathan’s wife, Dame Patience.
A news report even said Patience played a pivotal role in forcing Abba’s sack.
Abba, on the eve of the governorship elections posted some senior police officers out of their bases, but the Presidency countermanded some of the postings, such as AIG Mbu Joseph Mbu, who was asked to leave Lagos for Ogun state. Mbu stayed put in Lagos and attempted to take control of the state command from Police Commissioner, Kayode Aderanti. But whatever was planned could not work since Mbu would need the collaboration of the DPOs.
In Rivers State, Abba asked AIG Tunde Ogunsakin to stay put. But the presidency, in another unusual move ordered his redeployment to Cross River on the eve of the gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections. Abba reportedly dilly-dallied in carrying out the presidency’s order and one report said President Jonathan had to personally call Abba on phone to get Ogunsakin out of the way. Because Ogunsakin is Yoruba from Ekiti State, Patience Jonathan was said to have accused him of being an APC agent.
Of course, the farcical election in the state, which international observers said did not meet the minimum standards of INEC, is now the subject of a deluge of petitions—17 of them at the last count, before the Election Tribunal.
Abba’s conduct after Buhari’s election was also said to have been part of the reasons he was sacked with despatch.
He was said to have attended the presentation of the certificate of return to Buhari by INEC, when he was not known to have been invited by the INEC.
Apart from this sin, he was also said to have cozied up with the president-elect, carrying on as if the Jonathan presidency was a lame-duck.
With Abba’s sack, Jonathan may be proving that he still has some bite before 29 May handover to the new president.
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