President Goodluck Jonathan arbitrarily sacked Inspector General of Police (IGP), Suleiman Abba, from his job on Tuesday, 21 April in a transitory feat of rage or thoughtlessness or both.
With the same sleight of hand, he appointed Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Solomon Arase, Head of Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (FCIID), to replace Abba with an equal measure of arbitrariness that is a throwback to military dictatorship.
Jonathan gave no reason for the sack, which opened the floodgates of speculation.
Conspiracy theorists concluded that the sack, first posted on Twitter, came after a “kangaroo fair hearing” which negates all the democratic principles Jonathan claims to hold dear as Nigeria’s hero of democracy.
The appointment of Abba’s successor hardly went through the constitutional due processes with the advice of the Police Service Commission (PSC).
This is one sack too many. We object to it. In one stoke, Jonathan decapitated the police in violation of the legal provisions which its top appointee, Abba, must scale down in a fair hearing or Arase climb up to the Senate.
Either way, the Senate provides a fair hearing platform for Abba to defend his actions or inactions while Arase is screened and confirmed constitutionally.
The expertise, competence, and efficiency of the police as a crime-busting institution thrive on training, retraining, education and, above all, cognate experience.
That is why we object to the arbitrary sack of Abba. It aborted a top-ranking officer’s career by four years. The country will get not more than one year of service from his successor who would retire on June 21, 2016, three full years before Abba’s original retirement date.
Even if Abba had acted, or failed to act, in violation of the rules of his office akin to gross misconduct, it is up to the relevant professional organisation, such as the PSC, to assess his conduct and mete out punishment.
It is a colossal waste of resources to train officers to the top rung of the ladder and truncate their careers with arbitrary recklessness.
Six changes of IGP in six years, sacked or retired, deplete the cerebral reservoir the police tap from to clean the nation of criminal elements to restore law and order:
Mohammed Abubakar, Hafiz Ringim, Ogbonna Onovo, Mike Okiro, and Sunday Ehindero, all preceded Abba; besides several others who quit when their juniors were promoted above them.
The National Assembly (NASS) should amend the law to close the lacuna which allows the president to appoint or sack an IGP without Senate approval.
Removing the arbitrariness of sack from their tenure gives public officeholders the job security to perform their duties to the best of their professional demands. Rigorous screening to get into or out of office helps them see that justice is done.
Some public officeholders conduct themselves as staff of the appointing president and the ruling party rather than professionals appointed to serve Nigerians’ interest.
Thus, we frown at Abba elevating himself to the status of law enforcer and judge when he arbitrarily withdrew on October 30, 2014 the security detail of House of Representatives Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, for defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) – and restoring it secretly after five months without court order.
Such fawning, in spite of public outcry, makes the Villa see Abba and other appointees as the president’s private security advisers rather than officials of Nigeria.
We hope the Muhammadu Buhari administration will not embarrass the country, the IGP and demoralise the police. Nigeria would have been better off with one term of four years under Abba’s full tenure than one year of his successor, Arase.
Since we have not heard any cogent, compelling reason for Abba’s sack, when Buhari mounts the saddle on May 29 he should investigate the circumstances, and if found innocent, reverse the decision and restore him to his job.
