Obstacles before IGP Abubakar

Of course we all know that warts and all, we do need a government. That over the years government functionaries have reduced the fundamental role of government to consists mainly of supervising the sharing (as against the supervision of judicial usage) of national resources is the sum total of our national woes. In other words […]

Of course we all know that warts and all, we do need a government. That over the years government functionaries have reduced the fundamental role of government to consists mainly of supervising the sharing (as against the supervision of judicial usage) of national resources is the sum total of our national woes. In other words the more government fails, the more we realize how badly we need it, or how urgent is the need to redeem it, to make it work for us rather than against us.

Many people have already reached the conclusion that the best we can hope for from the current government is to be able to survive to see the end of it’s mandate in 2015. “We” here meaning both corporate Nigeria and it’s individual citizens. Given the events of the last six moths, which were unarguably the most traumatic in our half a century of existence as a nation, and the bleak prospects for improvement, this means that only the most stupid among us can expect the government to actually “work for us” in the standard definition of the phrase. The only goal we can reasonably pursue therefore, is to ensure that the government does not, consciously or unconsciously, work towards destroying us both as a country and as individuals.

By now we have all come to terms with the limitations of the three arms of government consisting of the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive. We all have a reasonable idea of how deeply all of these arms of government are afflicted by a deadly virus called corruption. We are equally conscious of the criminal silence that the operators of these agencies have maintained over this very obvious problem and the incriminating evidence against them. All of them speak about corruption as if it is a crime committed by “others” even though they know and we know who and who are responsible for what. It is this hypocrisy that makes our situation hopeless. How do you solve a problem which diagnosis you have deliberately chosen to distort?

It was in the middle of this hopelessness that the new Acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. M. D. Abubakar emerged with the first honest diagnosis of our problem. IGP Abubakar represents the law enforcement ( executive) arm of the three arms of government. Thus far he is the first and highest ranking government functionary to admit that the the problem is with the government and not with the people.

And therein lies his very formidable challenge. Even as he spoke, it was easy to deduct that Abubakar was ruffling very powerful feathers. Thus the first obstacle he would face would be from his own bosses. Would they give him the free hand and the support he needs to achieve his passionate and patriotic agenda?

His second obstacle would be from the legislative arm of government. He had withdrawn, or threatened to withdraw, police from guarding individuals, including legislators. This is an arrangement that benefits both the police personnel and the top government and public officials they illegally protect. Obviously they are likely to conspire to frustrate the IGP in this aspect of his plan and to a larger extent, his general objective; more so since the need for police protection by the legislators is itself a sign of something more sinister that the legislators and other government officials are doing, and for which they need security. Can he fight them?

Then there is the very delicate challenge from his own officers and men. Over the years police personnel have developed total reliance on graft rather than their honest remunerations. The very day Abubakar made his landmark speech about police check points being converted to toll gates where policemen receive bribe “in the full glare of the public”, policemen at every checkpoint across the country were busy extorting money from motorists without a care in the world. Since then the situation had only gotten worse. Some security analysts trace the problem to the tenure of former IGP Tafa Balogun when many criminals were recruited into the force merely by paying between N30,000 to N50,000. Now they constitutive nearly half of the police force. How would the IGP handle this?

Finally my condolences to the NPF over the shooting last Thursday of their officers who were detailed to guard the Kano private residence of the IGP. According to some reports, the policemen were gunned down when they put down their riffles while having dinner.

Note:The new security measure adopted by the police in Kano and Maiduguri requires citizens approaching a security checkpoint to raise their hands up in the air ( if they are pedestrians), or to climb down and push their motorcycles until they are well through the checkpoints area. So how did the gunmen that kill the IGP’s residence security guards passed through the checkpoints? Obviously by paying their way with as little as N50.(fifty Naira).

So help us God, including and in particular, IGP M. D. Abubakar.