Between IGP Idris and Sen. Misau
Senators are accorded high regard so are they expected to conduct themselves with a cognizant level of decorum and comportment befitting of their high office. So, it would be extremely difficult to conceive of a situation where a senator or group of senators would stoop so low as to engage in idle or vile gossip, […]
Senators are accorded high regard so are they expected to conduct themselves with a cognizant level of decorum and comportment befitting of their high office. So, it would be extremely difficult to conceive of a situation where a senator or group of senators would stoop so low as to engage in idle or vile gossip, incessant rumour mongering or cheap blackmail targeted at serving or retired public officers in order to tarnish their hard-won reputation to advance the nefarious agenda of certain self-serving and self-aggrandizing objectives. In fact, such an errant or erratic senator may find he or herself duly sanctioned by the Senate as a whole.
On the Nigerian political landscape, recent and not so recent occurrences had obviously put the country’s Senate on the spot as political pundits, observers and commentators alike have to query its sagacity, sobriety and sense of purpose and direction, especially as regards to some members of the upper chamber.
For instance, the way and manner the Senate as a body has taken decidedly confrontational positions vis-à-vis the executive’s arm has caused grave concerns among the electorate as the common people have taken their lawmakers to task, contending that they are not complying with the aims and objectives of their various oaths of office. It’s against this background that in Bauchi State, youths, women and the not so young had cause to pelt a certain senator with sachet water, stones and other missiles due to his perceived antagonistic stance against the reformist policies of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Indeed, the aggrieved people were disenchanted and frustrated with the nonchalant and noncommittal posture of Senator Hamma Misau as regards the delivery of crucial democratic dividends to the people as he rarely visited their constituency and the few times he was around, he was barricaded from the people by an intimidating array of security details and fearsome looking bodyguards.
In fact, while other Senators and Reps from Bauchi and neighbouring states regularly visited their constituencies with a harvest of interventionist projects, Misau is cut from an entirely different cloth preferring to chase shadows or shadow box with imaginary opponents in the Presidency or the vast MDA bureaucracy. It seems that the senator has a totally different conception of the raison d’être for his election as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, quite opposite of the conception of his hardworking, compassionate and purposeful colleagues.
Instead of addressing and focusing on progress and synergy for development with the relevant institutions, Sen. Hamma Misau’s erratic shadow boxing and tantrums had dipped to an unprecedented low as he has tactlessly engaged the office and person of the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris and his second wife Asta in a series of unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption, maladministration and shockingly of sexual abuse against female personnel of the Nigerian police force. It is rather unfortunate that Senator Misau who actually served in the Nigerian Police Force would stoop so low as to denigrate the very establishment that recruited, trained and equipped to a position such as an orderly to a former FCT minister.
The fact is that the lady in question, Asta, was recruited into the service of the Nigerian Police in 2016 as specialist and decorated with the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). It doesn’t violate any rule of the service as it’s the starting rank for the DSP Specialists; and Asta alongside 55 specialists who include 22 engineers and 34 pilots were employed as pilots. On the alleged secret marriage, Asta had retired from the service before getting married to the IGP Ibrahim Idris at a well-attended occasion at the famous Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna. And on the pregnancy, when has it become an offense for someone to impregnate his wife? Indeed, Senator Misau should bow his head in shame as well as tender an unreserved apology to IGP Idris, the family of Asta, the Nigerian Police and the nation in general for this campaign of calumny, blackmail and character assignation.
Kafur writes from Abuja.