Merits of IG Abba’s intelligence report

As Her Majesty’s privileged scholar, I was barred from protesting. They would not have known that I had no intention of joining the protest anyway. Believe me, it had nothing to do with Malcolm X’s description of the difference between the house Negro and the field Negro. Rather, it would have been as a result […]

As Her Majesty’s privileged scholar, I was barred from protesting. They would not have known that I had no intention of joining the protest anyway. Believe me, it had nothing to do with Malcolm X’s description of the difference between the house Negro and the field Negro. Rather, it would have been as a result of the jealousy I felt that nobody in my home country contributed to that dodgy dossier. Somewhere in the Naija intelligence community then was an unsung officer by the name of Suleiman Abba.
The world was going to war without the contribution of a man with the nose of a bloodhound. I mean, Abba could have sniffed Sadam’s real behind from a million miles. He would have told both Bush and Blair that there was no smoking gun. Saddam could not feed his people and did not know the difference between helium and the fart from a bum feeding on  black peas.
Their war proved Austrian humorist, Karl Kraus right – ‘how is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.’ The world went to war because somebody wrote an intelligence report based on conjecture, it fell into the hands of politricians who sexed it up, leaked it to the media and began to believe their own lie. In police speak, ‘intelligence report’ means anything to legitimately hang your opponent before he had the capacity to harm you.
So, I doff my fedora for the new IG who is leading us back to the historical recurrence of the Abacha years. An ungrateful nation did not allow ‘Alhaji Abba’ to write the dossier that made the Abacha years the most secure in the annals of dictatorship. Thankfully he has a chance to rerun it at our expense in the Marxist aphorism that history repeats itself twice, first as tragedy, second as farce? In taking us back to the halcyon days of the Abacha years, IG Abba reminds us of the words of the great Idi Amin Dada of Uganda – that ‘in any country, there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.” Second that ‘you have freedom of speech but freedom after speech, I cannot guarantee that.” There is freedom to drop off the ruining party, but freedom to continue to hold the paraphernalia that party confers afterwards is not guaranteed.
There are benefits to the rehashed way of doing things. Some prefer to congest the courts with questions of interpretation as if they wrote the dictionary. But smart Gwaram sons who speak Oyibo pass English men like IG Abba and AIG Mbu Joseph Mbu both in one town, it won’t be long when judges return to their evening golf and squash games. Thus far, the courts are too congested with frivolous cases that can be settled gachacha style by the IG to exercise. On the economic front, with the Naira floating dangerously on the precipice of sound economic management, this idea of having law keeper and interpreter in one also saves millions in legal fees. There is no need to apologise to liars, if they don’t like it, they can join the police and wait their promotion.
It looks to me that IG Suleiman Abba is the answer to years of presidential heckling. He formally came to the saddle in August but already change is in the air. For anyone who can afford the ride, security has improved – what with dual carriageways being reduced to single lanes starting from Zone 7 headquarters to Louis Edet House. All major roads now have joint patrols which excludes nobody except those exercising siren immunity, armed robbers, kidnappers and members of the boko haram suicide squad. This is a recipe for growth for a rebased economy, a magnet for investors to the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa. People should be glad that crime is now being given its right of place in the country which taught Oyibos the difference between common stealing and corruption. Now we are teaching Interpol a few lessons in policing.
The problem in this country is that people take liberty for granted. Now that the police can sniff crimes with the acuity of the canine and also interpret the law better than the judiciary, evil doers know that intelligence report would find them out. They are jittery and crying foul. For now nobody has stopped people from taking the NADECO route or checking out like Andrew.