The change of guard in Louis Edet House

I feared that Ibrahim Kpotun Idris would last for ever. Apparently, not. No one, and nothing, lasts for ever. I knew the gods were not prepared to make an exception in his own case. Splendid. And so, like the 17 inspectors-general before him, Ibrahim now wears his new two-letter suffix of the has-been, as in ex-inspector-general of police. The going of him is a relief, a major relief, to the country. President Buhari was right not to extend the man’s tenure beyond his retirement age. No, I am not toasting to that with a glass of the bubbly.

Mohammed Adamu, has stepped in as the 19th inspector-general of police. Welcome. The going of one man and the coming of another should afford us some opportunity for a brief look at the Nigeria Police Force today as an important civil force with the primary constitutional duty of making us feel safe in our homes, offices and roads. On the shoulders of the force lies the heavy burden of ensuring that the rest of us play by the many rules intended to make civilised men and women out of us.

This, to me, is the simple definition of the role of the Nigeria Police Force in our country. But this is often poorly understood by the commanders-in-chief of the force and their foot soldiers. Part of the reason is that our inspectors-general confuse themselves with where their loyalty lies. Their oath of office obliges them to be loyal to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They mistake this for loyalty to the president who appointed them. And this, often at the expense of the country and its people.

Idris appeared to have redefined his role as inspector-general of police in very convenient and self-serving terms. He saw himself as the primary catcher-in-chief, not of thieves and the many deviants in the society, but of the real and suspected enemies of President Buhari. He saw himself as the face of police power and authority and sought to grab what was not assigned to him by law. Indeed, he felt so powerful that he did two things that surprised and confused the rest of us. He ordered, not once, the senate president, Dr Bukola Saraki, the number three man in the line of succession, to report to him to answer to allegations that the Offa robbers had allegedly implicated him in their confessional statements to the police.

At the height of the wanton killings in Benue State by the herdsmen, Buhari ordered him to relocate to the state to help make it safe again. He ignored the order. For all he cared, Benue could go to blazes. It nearly did. Idris was sure the president would not discipline him. And he was right.

I would not know what the officers and men in the police force think of his legacy. My guess is that he left it much worse than he found it when he stepped into the professional shoes once worn by such redoubtable men as M.D. Yusuf, Etim, Inyang, Sunday Adewusi and Muhammadu Gambo. Under his watch, the country became increasingly unsafe for everyone not privileged like him to have full police protection 24/7. He chose to post police men to baby-sit our important men while the security challenges stared him in the face because he misled himself into believing that serving his political masters was his primary duty. Idris did nothing, if anything, particularly impressive about the killings in the Middle Belt or those in Zamfara State attributed to bandits.

The man must have left office with one regret. He failed to put Saraki in prison. But if it is any consolation to him, I am sure he left office relishing his victory over Senator Dino Melaye. Thanks to him, the much-hunted and haunted senator now has to answer to some alleged sins of commission before a court of law. Win some, lose some? You got it.

Adamu has received matching orders from the president to do what his predecessor could not do: end the killings, the reign of criminals and make our country safe again. He came into office with an impressive professional resume. It is fair to assume that given his training, his wide experience in law-enforcement and his many assignments in the police force, he is capable of carrying out the president’s orders but only by anchoring his assignment on what is best for the country and its people. He must not bend his loyalty to the exigencies of politics and political interests. I hope he has no illusions about the problems he has inherited in the force. They are huge and taxing. He is not a stranger to these problems. Some of them defeated some of his predecessors in office. He could make a huge difference if he manages to take the force back to the force and commit to its role as a protective rather than as a coercive or oppressive force.

Adamu would leave a shiny legacy at the end of the day if he commits a) to a better image of the Nigeria Police Force. He would not, I presume, be hearing from me, that the force is the least trusted of our institutions in the land today. Part of the problem is that its orientation has been progressively skewed to political interests. The police uniform is a source of fear and not an umbrella under which the poor and the weak can take refuge from the egregious employment of power and wealth to oppress and suffocate them. Its officers and men tend to be high-handed and treat the public generally with contempt. No one believes the police slogan that our police men and women are our friends. They are more like our oppressors.

b) Tackle the most lingering problem of the force that has done much to give it its rotten image: corruption. This, admittedly, is not a peculiar problem of the force. At least, to my knowledge, the anti-graft war is not directed at the police force. After all, its commanders are police officers and men. Perhaps, in the circumstances, it is unfair to expect the police force to be an untainted island in the sea and murk of our collective failing as a nation. However, the peculiar place of the Nigeria Police Force in all this is that it is the only institution taxed with enforcing the laws of the land. It forfeits its moral right to do so when its personnel feel that they have a right to breach those laws with impunity. Given this mind-set, they fail to protect the weak from the strong and the poor from the rich. The weak wail and the poor also wail.

Adamu can hear the wailing. If he turns the wailing to laughter, he would earn additional pips from the Nigerian public. It is his call. I wish him well.