Adhere strictly to law, group charges Tinubu on appointment of new IGP

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been advised and called upon to regard strict adherence to the provision of the law as the primary consideration in the appointment of the next Inspector General of Police.

A civil society organisation, the Nigerian Civil Society Contact Group (CSCG), an amalgam of many Non-Governmental and Civil Society Organisations, with a primary focus on good governance and human rights, made the submission at a media briefing.

In the statement titled, The Next Inspector-General of Police Must Be Appointed According to Law and in The Best Interest of Nigeria’s Security, Engineer Taiwo Akindolu, Director-General of CSCG, noted that while former President Buhari blatantly disregarded the provision of the law in the appointments of the three IGPs that served in his eight years governing the country, especially the current occupier of the office, President Tinubu must not emulate those unconstitutional steps that could re-ignite controversies and a judicial logjam that surfaced in the past administration.

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Akindolu said the Police Act 2020 signed into law by former President Buhari clearly stipulates the requirements for the appointment of an Inspector General of Police, warning that any action outside of the provision of the law could breed controversy which the new government can ill afford.

He reckoned that Section 7 Paragraph 6 of the Police Act 2020 says that the person to be appointed to the office of the Inspector-General of Police shall hold office for four years while Paragraph 2 of the same section of the law also states that such appointee shall be a senior police officer not below the rank of an Assistant Inspector-General of Police with the requisite academic qualifications of not less than a first degree or its equivalent in addition to professional and management experience.

Akindolu submitted: “We strongly advise President Tinubu to uphold the rule of law in the appointment of a new IGP. The former President was ignobly reputed for disobeying the law which he blatantly demonstrated in the appointment of Usman Baba barely one year after he signed the new Police Act into law. As of the date of his appointment, Usman Baba was 58 years old and stepped into an office with a four-year tenure when he had just two years left in the service. His appointment has since been nullified by a High Court in Anambra State, and we could have avoided the national embarrassment if Buhari had done the right thing by obeying the law.”

Stressing further, he noted, “It behoves on Mr President not only to ensure a prudent adherence to the laws guiding the appointment of an IGP but must also take other fundamental variables into consideration, particularly with regard to Section 7(6) of the Nigeria Police Act, 2020 which states that the person appointed to the office of the Inspector-General of the Police shall hold office for four years.

“In the wisdom of the drafters of this section of the Act, it follows that while making the choice of who to be Nigeria’s Police IG, the president and the Police Council must pay special attention to ensure that whoever is being chosen has at least four more years or above to serve in the Nigerian Police before retirement.”