The 2019 elections are fewer than five weeks away and Nigerians are expecting the new inspector-general of police to be non-partisan and fair to all political parties and groups.
Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president, on Tuesday replaced the outgoing Ibrahim Idris with Mohammed Abubakar Adamu from Nasarawa State.
Adamu will oversee the tense 2019 elections, which begins with the presidential leg on February 16.
The outgoing Ibrahim Idris is seen by opposition political parties, especially the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), as partisan, citing the cases of Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial elections as well as treatment of some top opposition politicians.
“Security agencies have shown so much partisanship in recent times,” said Emmanuel Edegar, a Benue State-based medical doctor, who is also a lawyer.
“In this administration alone, you saw the way the police insulted our governor, Samuel Ortom, just because he was asking them to do the needful by arresting the marauding Fulani herdsmen. You also saw the way Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye and some opposition legislators were treated under IGP Idris. This is not the type of police we want to see during the elections,” Edegar said.
He explained, however, that there was abuse of police force during the previous administrations but admitted that the police under the outgoing idris would go down as one that is most partisan and unfair.
Lat year, the police under the outgone Idris asked Saraki to answer questions regarding his alleged role in a bank robbery in Offa, Kwara State. This is the first time the head of legislature in Nigeria is linked with robbery openly. The homes of Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu, deputy Senate president, were barricaded by the police and the Department of State Security (DSS) in July 2018, drawing the ire of most Nigerians.
On January 11, Saraki accused the police of supervising the invasion of his house. “Yesterday (Jan 10), these same APC thugs shielded by policemen went to my family quarters in Agbaji in Ilorin, and vandalised houses, shops and inflicted wounds with machetes on three people.
“For me, personally, I believe the decision to attack people and property in my family’s ancestral compound is a direct affront and attack on my person. And whatever signal these APC elements with support from the police believe they are sending is definitely sinister, uncivilised and unfortunate.
“All these destructions took place in the presence of policemen who came with them but watched without any care, as the All Progressive Congress (APC) thugs and supporters unleashed violence on our people.”
Analysts say it portends danger to perceive the police as partisan when elections are close, urging the new IGP to break with the past.
“In 2017, the US police had to openly disagree with President Donald Trump when he alleged that they were roughing up people they arrested. I am not saying the new IGP should disagree with his APC or Buhari, but he needs to write his name on the sand of time by saying ‘no’ to undue pressure at this time,”Eche Ume, a US-based human rights activist, said.
“I do not also want the new IGP to disobey his master when he is asked to go to Benue,” he added.
ODINAKA ANUDU
