Why did the President Not Look for IGP With Clean Reputation?

That President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed a new Inspector General of Police (IGP) is no longer news. What is disturbing is that the new IGP already has a past tarnished by allegations he allowed religious and ethnic violence that killed 1,000 people to spiral out of control. Couldn't the President have spared the nation the unnecessary controversy that this appointment is generating?

It is on record that some indigenes of Plateau State have come out to condern the appointment of the new IGP because of his notorous past

The Boko Haram sect which has been unleashing untold violence on Nigerians in the northern part of the country is an estremist Islamic religious group which is determined to impose shariah on the entire states in the North. The new IGP, who is from Zamfara state is suspected by some christians in the northern part of the country of being an islamic fundamentalist. Is this the kind of person that should occupy that exalted office at this point in time when there is serious crisis of confidence between christians and muslims especially in the north ?

Mohammed D. Abubakar served as police commissioner in Plateau state in 2001, leading up to rioting that saw Muslim and Christian groups armed with machetes and firearms attack each other in the restive central Nigerian city of Jos. And while some victims burned to the death in the street, civil society groups said Abubakar refused to send officers into the street to stop the violence.

"The police commissioner kept saying everything was under control while the whole town was on fire," one local human rights activist told Human Rights Watch after the rioting.

The White Paper on the Report of the Justice Nikki Tobi led Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Civil Disturbances in Jos and its environs , Septerber 2002 has this to say about the new IGP, "Of all the individuals, groups and organizations who were mentioned in the various memoranda as having played one role or the other with regard to the crisis, none received more scathing comments than Alhaji M.D. Abubakar, the Plateau State Commissioner of Police at the time of the crisis. He served in that capacity from 16/7/2000 to 16/11/2001. His name was mentioned in not less than fifty percent of the memoranda submitted to the Commission with varying degreesof condemnation of his role before and during the crisis. Such memoranda include Exhibits L, 16, 48, 52, 257, 470, 507, 521 and 524 among many others.The oral evidence of witnesses before the Commission is equally replete withallegations that Alhaji M.D. Abubakar was responsible in one way or the other forcausing the crisis or failing to curtail its severity or extent. The only dissentingvoice is that of Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dominic Yadubiya, the AreaCommander who signed and presented Exhibit 79, the Memorandum of the officeof the Commissioner of Police, Plateau State Command. While not condemning Alhaji M.D. Abubakar, Yadubiya did not praise him either"


The White Paper further stated that "Religious fanatics should not be posted to head state police commands. The commission recommends that for his ignoble role during the September 2001 crisis which resulted in the loss of lives, the former Commissioner of Police, Plateau State Command, Alhaji M.D. Abubakar, be advised to retire from the Nigeria Police Force and in the event of his
refusal to do so, he should be dismissed from the service.".

With the suspicion that the Boko Haram sect has infiltrated some security agencies, I do not think that this is the time to appoint a man with this kind of reputation as IGP. I hope the President has not forgotten how the sloppiness of CP Zakari Biu led to the mysterious disappearance of Kabiru Sokoto the mastermind of the Christmas day bombing of St Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla.

Expressing rage over the appointment of the new IGP, the member representing Jos-South/Jos-East constituency in the House of Representatives, Honourable Bitrus Kaze, was quoted as saying that: “It is amazing to me that at a time when Nigeria is witnessing a spate of terrorism, a man who has been indicted by the Justice Nikki Tobi Commission of Inquiry into the September 2001 crises in Jos, and recommended for dismissal from the police force by the commission, is the one found fit to lead the Nigerian Police.

“It is disheartening that those who have mentored terrorism in Nigeria are being asked to lead the police against the same terrorism. I cannot imagine it; I am shocked beyond words.”

In another reaction, the Special Assistant to Governor David Jang, Mr. Clinton Garuba, said it was disheartening and alarming that the president could appoint Abubakar as the IG.

He said: “AIG Abubakar is incompetent and lacks the credibility of a leader, and has been recommended for sack for his role in the 2001 crises in Plateau State by the Justice Niki Tobi Commission of Inquiry