Controversial (apologies to Amaechi Anakwe of AIT) Mbu Joseph Mbu may have now resumed duty in Lagos, the Centre of Excellence, courtesy of the movement of officers which the Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, ordered last week.
He was among 27 top cops redeployed across the country in a bid by the police authorities to live up to expectations both for the general elections and for proactive policing.
Mbu, an Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), was posted to Zone 2 Command, Onikan, Lagos, an office to which the police high command attaches very high importance because of strategic reasons. He replaces Umaru Mamko, also an AIG.
Zone 2 is noted for being led by police officers who are professional and blend well with the cosmopolitan residents of Lagos and Ogun States. Officers deployed to Zone 2 are historically sent from the Lagos Command after a meritorious service in the state, and often end up as IG.
But, Zone 2, like any other zonal command, is more or else for administrative convenience given that most of the cases handled there are referred from Lagos and Ogun State Commands manned by Commissioners of Police.
Since news of Mbu’s coming to Lagos broke, commentators have raised concern that suggest he is being sent to foment trouble or check opposition politicians. They draw their fears from what they saw in Rivers State and later, the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja where Mbu had served lately.
In Rivers, because of the unending battle Mbu had with Governor Rotimi Amaechi, his name was heard more regularly than his achievements.
With his confrontational posture against the Amaechi administration, he provided fodder for his tenure to be assessed by the same media which popularised his name. Today, Mbu is a celebrity.
His coming to Lagos is a blessing in disguise. He will deal with the upwardly mobile Lagos and Ogun residents and media, particularly the Lagos media, the headquarters of major media houses in the country. He will be so busy doing policing for which Abba brought him to town without time for frivolities.
Mbu must be at his best professionally to secure the trust of Lagosians who have diverse socio political and ethnic backgrounds. He should not be confrontational as he was in Rivers and Abuja.
I agree with Joe Igbokwe, the All Progressives Congress (APC) spokesman for Lagos, who said: “Mbu must understand that this is Lagos. Since Lagos was created in 1967, it has been in the hands of the progressives. It is neither Rivers nor Abuja.
“This is special state where the best minds live. It is the city of civil societies and the media. We know his antecedents. We boldly welcome Mbu to Lagos but he should tread carefully, and if he fails to heed our advice, we will run him down.
“But we will advise him to drop all the excess baggage he exhibited in Port Harcourt.”
However, I disagree with Igbokwe on his ‘an eye for an eye’ posturing with Mbu. He should be treated as one of the numerous partners in progress Lagos hosts. He should be helped to do his work properly.
One of the ways Lagosians should help evaluate Mbu professionally is by being law abiding and shunning criminal acts that would draw attention to him.
Insecurity is a big issue in many parts of Nigeria, including Lagos and Ogun. Both states should set targets for him on tolerable (in)security.
Proactive ways to ensure an election free of violence should be the preoccupation. This can come through seminars, workshops, and symposia involving the government, the police, politicians, market men and women, students, security agencies, the media, and civil society.
Maddening Northern crowd
Last week, both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) took their campaigns to the North. Turnout in “the mother of unsecured parts of Nigeria” was intimidating and maddening.
After watching the crowd in Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, and Jigawa States in particular, I was surprised that nobody counts any longer the risk of venturing into a region described as a no-go area because of Boko Haram insurgents.
I wondered where politicians got the courage to storm the North which they never had when the insurgents took over the zone and determined who lived in or quit the North, dead or alive.
I had thought that politicians would not bother to go near the Northern states, including those not under emergency rule, since Boko Haramists have declared the North their “own”.
Those who say politics is a game of numbers have their reasons. If what we saw in the North when President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, and particularly Muhammadu Buhari of the APC, launched their campaigns last week is the barometer, one may be tempted to say that the winner and the loser in the presidential poll have been known.
There are other factors that work in the interest of politicians and determine how elections are lost and won. If the crowd is rented, it will affect the vote. But it is difficult to conclude that the crowd at Buhari’s rallies in the North was rented.
However, I have my fear about the electoral value of all those who formed part of that huge crowd. When you are dealing with a society where a large chunk of the people are illiterate what matters to them may be different from the things that will help the politician win an election.
Pray the crowd we saw in those Northern states are eligible voters who possess voter’s cards, otherwise, the uselessness of the crowd will stare everybody in the face. It happened before, and I see it happening again, except Buhari and his campaign handlers have done enough to educate the people.
Most of the so-called Buhari supporters shouting Sai Buhari, Sai Buhari may be supporters who do not have voter’s cards but were expressing their love for the retired General because of what he stands for.
Those who have voter’s cards may lack the knowledge to vote properly; their ballots be may voided.
Therefore, there is still need for the handlers of Jonathan and Buhari to intensify sensitising supporters before February 14. Failure to do so will make nonsense of the huge crowds at Northern rallies.