For new IGP: A roadmap

President Muhammadu Buhari recently appointed a new Inspector General of Police in the person of Mohamed Abubakar Adamu mni, (in an acting capacity for now), and put paid to widespread speculations over a hidden agenda of using the outgoing IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris for rigging the forthcoming polls. It was for good measure that he appointed a replacement for Kpotun, as and when he did, and scored two points. Firstly, is to allow the gentlemen Kpotun to enjoy his deserved rest, after a long and distinguished career run in the Nigeria Police Force, which took him to the pinnacle of the establishment. Is it not the Police that operate the maxim which goes that “after your beat, go home and rest”?

Secondly is that the President has disappointed not a few critics by demonstrating a personal respect for extant procedures pertaining to the Nigeria Police Force as far as entry and exit of officers is concerned. After all, Buhari could have extended Kpotun’s stay in office after retirement, and the heavens would not fall. This is even as many Nigerians had hoped that the President could also have acted the vote seeking Nigerian politician by considering the dream of feminists and appointed Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Peace Abdallah – a lady top cop, and who hails from the South East geopolitical zone. Had such happened, it would have significantly addressed expectations of feminists in the country who pray for a female security service chief in Nigeria, and boosted the President’s credentials as being gender compliant, beyond assuaging the sense of marginalization of the South East zone, in the nation’s political space.

With the ascendancy of Mr Adamu as the new Acting IGP, the stage is now set for a new deal for the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force and the country, but whose character and circumstances will be largely determined by how Adamu – the new man in the saddle, sees his job. Seen in proper context, the role and functions of the Police in the society are often more significant than is casually realized. This is just as that of the IGP’s are no less.

In the case of the new IGP he has two options along any of which he can direct his operational disposition. With the avalanche of courtesies from the high and low across the country that will attend to his new status, he can allow himself to be tempted to see his position from the narrow prism of promoting self above duty and end up in hot pepper soup. Examples abound of his predecessors who treaded such path and earned unflattering end-games. He could also comport himself mindfully, as essentially a public officer who is willing to be protected by the wide ambit of extant rules of engagement and other legitimate appurtenances of office. If he chooses the latter direction, he will likely enjoy a less bumpy sail, on a job where when you are wrong, nobody forgives you, and when you are right, nobody remembers.

The foregoing homily is informed by the complement of antecedents with which the average IGP comes into office, especially with respect to basic acquaintance with the wide spectrum of peculiarities and sensitivities of the numerous ethnic groups that make up the country. Nobody could have put Nigeria’s dilemma of ‘Babel’ better than one of Nigeria’s best lady musicians, Evi Edna Ogholi, who sang that “One kilometer means another language”. A pan Nigerian disposition is therefore a critical success factor for the new IGP.

This is just as he also needs to insulate himself from sundry pressures that will inevitably come from state governors who, driven by their imperious tendencies, easily see themselves as ‘lords of the manor’ in their respective states. These would not hesitate to seek to conscript a new IGP into their spheres of influence and dictate the posting of their favoured police officers, to their respective states, even if such compromises the operational expedients and exigencies within the purview of the IGP.

Ordinarily the foregoing scenario could easily conjure for an unwary IGP an image of his or her appointment as being thrown into a shark infested stream, with little room for escaping from patent danger.  Yet the position of an IGP is not a ‘kamikaze’ suicide mission, but a double barreled dispensation for bringing out the best in the career profile of a police officer. Firstly, it confers recognition on the incumbent with a mark of excellence in service. Secondly it offers the incumbent an opportunity to stamp a personal mark in the annals of the force with respect to moving it to the next level. Interestingly, public interest in the circumstances of any IGP is built around how the second factor fares under him or her.

For the new IGP, the road map to success cannot be clearer, given some of his sterling antecedents which add to his career run as Police Commissioner in Ekiti and Enugu States, as well as the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) in charge of Zone Five comprising Police formations in Bayelsa, Edo and Delta states. He is also credited with a distinguished service run at the Interpol headquarters in Lyon France, where he reportedly was the first African to emerge as its Assistant Director. Added to the foregoing is his stint at Nigeria’s most prestigious leadership development facility – National Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (NIPSS) Kuru, as a directing staff or instructor.

Nigerians will therefore expect to see the new IGP act quickly to identify with making the Nigeria Police better than he meets it. And at no other time than now is the best opportunity offered him on a platter of gold, with the forthcoming general polls and the compliment of contending interests built around it. He needs to draw a line between protecting the lives, property and civil liberties of all citizens without fear or favour, and pandering to the whims and caprices of any ruling political party and its complement of apparatchik.

After the polls come other matters including the imperative to reform the Nigeria Police Force, in accordance with the laws of the country. The reform of the Police establishment in particular has been in the works for a long time, with the Nigerian public enduring a long running disappointment with the pace of progress. Even the outgoing Eighth National Assembly has before it, a Police Reform Bill, and whose fate is a matter of concern with the upcoming polls distracting the legislators from paying attention to it and other matters.

It is the combination of all of these issues that dictate for the IGP a symbiotic relationship with the Police Service Commission (PSC). A typical dividend from this symbiosis is the swathe of insulation he will enjoy with respect to these challenges, especially as it affects the management of whimsical and capricious pressures from state governors, over the posting of Commissioners to head police formations in states.

On a final note, this column expresses its love and encouragement to the new Acting IGP with the iconic article by one of Nigeria’s foremost social critics, late Dr Tai Solarin, and which was published on January 1st 1964 – ‘May your road be rough’. Nothing can be more truthful of a road map for IGP Mohamed Abubakar Adamu mni.