Ref:
Intersociety/S/03/05/013/S/E/Presidency/ABJ/FG
From:
The Secretariat of:
International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law
41, Miss Elems Street, Fegge, Onitsha,
Anambra, Nigeria
To:
Dr.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
President
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Commander-in-Chief
of the Armed Forces & Chairman, Nigeria Police Council
Thro
Mr. Peter
Gregory Obi
Chairman,
the Southeast Governors’ Forum
Office of
the Governor of Anambra State
Government
House, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria
Your
Excellencies,
Hausanisation
& Islamisation Policy In The Nigeria Police Force: Igbo-Southeast As
Endangered Species With The Loss Of Over 2,500 Souls Under Your Excellency’s Administration
-Part Two
On 6th day of May,
2013, we addressed a letter to Your Excellencies with the above related
caption. The letter is referenced: Intersociety/S/01/05/013/S/E/Presidency/ABJ/FGN.
We also addressed another letter to the Executive Chairman of the Federal
Character Commission, dated 6th day of May, 2013 and referenced: Intersociety/S/02/05/013/S/E/FCC/ABJ/FGN.
Copies of the two letters are attached for Your Excellencies’ perusal
and required action.
Our
writing Your Excellencies again is as a result of topical events of the
past days. Apart from the said events, we also find it important and necessary
to make the following corrections and clarifications pertaining to our first
letter to Your Excellencies. It is recalled that we had in the said
letter included the name of AIG (now DIG) Philemon Leha as one of the serving
AIGs in the NPF. He hails from Taraba State, Northeast Nigeria. But further
checks by leadership indicate that he was promoted to the DIG in 2012 on the
heels of the tragic death of DIG Haruna John, who died in a helicopter crash.
Also as we rightly pointed out in the letter to the effect that some CPs
whom we thought to be from the Igbo-Southeast may most likely hail from the
South-south Igbo areas. True to this position of ours, CP Kingsley
Omire, who retired statutorily on 21st day of April, 2013 as Bayelsa
State Commissioner of Police, is not from Igbo-Southeast, but from Delta
State. CP Benjamin Onwuka, who is Deputy Commandant, Police College,
Jos, is not from Igbo-Southeast, but from Asaba in Delta State. CP Isaac
Eke, CP Admin B, Force Headquarters, is from Rivers State and not from
Igbo- Southeast, and CP Patrick Egbuniwe, who was Commissioner of Police
in-charge of Yobe State Command, has retired statutorily weeks or months ago.
He hails from Onitsha in Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria.
Following the clarifications above, the
number of serving Igbo-Southeast Commissioners of Police in the Nigeria Police
Force has reduced to seven. Four of them: CPs Ikechukwu Aduba, CP in-charge
of Delta State Command, Godfrey Okeke, CP in-charge of Adamawa State Command,
Hilary Opara, CP in-charge of Kogi State Command and Ikemuefula Okoye,
CP in-charge of Ogun State Command, are the only four serving State
Commissioners of Police in Nigeria, who hail from Igbo-Southeast, while CPs
Mrs. Chintua Amajor Onu-CP Intelligence, Felix Uyanna-Commandant, Police
College, Oji River and Sylvester Umeh-CP, PAP, Eastern Port are the
three remaining non-State Commissioners of Police from the zone.
Authoritatively speaking, Your
Excellencies, there are confirmed 21 serving AIGs including 2
specialists and 19 general duties in the Nigeria Police Force as at 4th
day of April, 2013(last promotion by PSC/NPF took place on 3rd
day of April, 2013). Shockingly and sadly too, none of the said serving AIGs
in the NPF is from the Igbo-Southeast Nigeria. This is an impeachable
violation of Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution on federal character
principle. There are also 86 confirmed serving Commissioners of Police (CPs)
in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) as of date including 80 general duties and 6
specialists. Shockingly speaking, Your Excellencies, only seven Commissioners
of Police out of the 86 come from the Igbo-Southeast. This is another grave
violation of the said Section 14(3). By express meaning of this Section as well
as federal character principle and six geopolitical zonal structures, the
Igbo-Southeast zone is entitled to at least 14 serving CPs out of the 86
serving CPs and should be entitled to 15 if their number is increased to
90. Also due to deliberate stagnation that condemnably trailed the statutory
promotion and posting of these serving Igbo-Southeast CPs and few others
that occupy senior ranking positions like DCPs, ACPs, CSPs and SPs,
some of them will be due for statutory retirement in few weeks or months away
from date.
Similarly, it is authoritatively confirmed that
there are 176 serving DCPs in the NPF as of date including 163 general
duties and 13 specialists. In the area of Assistant Commissioners of Police
(ACPs), there are 385 of them serving in the NPF as of date with 374
general duties and 11 specialists. There are also 1,052 serving CSPs and
1, 707 SPs in the Nigeria Police Force as of date (03-04-2013) excluding
those who possibly retired statutorily since December 2012. About 95% of the
officers-in-charge of the NPF’s divisional police stations, special anti
robbery squads, area commands, state criminal investigations departments, State
commands, zonal commands, police educational institutions, border, airport,
railway and marine patrol commands and other top administrative duties, are
drawn from these top ranks of SPs to DIGs. Other than the seven
serving DIGs in the Nigeria Police Force, who equitably represent the
six geopolitical zones of Southeast, South-south, Southwest, Northwest,
Northeast and North-central, there is barefaced geopolitical lopsidedness in
the geopolitical identities and distributions of those who presently occupy the
ranks of SPs to AIGs in the Force. From our in-depth checks, the
geopolitical distribution of the said top police ranks heavily favors the three
geopolitical zones of Northwest, Northeast and Southwest, especially those
bearing Muslim names. The Southeast geopolitical zone is the worst victim of
the lopsided geopolitical distribution of the said top police ranks, followed
by the Christian officers of the old Middle-belt Region. The Christian
peoples of the old region are presently scattered in Taraba and Adamawa of
Northeast, Kaduna of Northwest and Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau of
North-central.
In other words, for the promoters of hausanisation,
islamisation and mediocrity policy in the Nigeria Police Force under the
headship of present IGP, Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar, it is a curse to be a
Christian police officer from northern part of Nigeria and a candidate of hell
to be an Igbo-Southeast police officer. On the other hand, it is
a blessing to be a police officer from the Yoruba-Southwest or North-central
and double blessing and princely too, to be a Hausa-Fulani Muslim police
officer in the NPF. For the latter, promotion, double
promotions and juicy postings are designed to be their portions at all times
even if they are professional mediocre(s) and imbeciles, and for
the former, especially the police officers of the Igbo-Southeast origin,
the contrary is the case at all times. For instance, heads
will roll threat-statement; issued by the IGP in 2012 on the heels
of suspected Boko Haram attack at the Abuja SARS headquarters had died down on
discovery that the suspected police accomplices in the context of insider
informants, etc were all Muslim officers. The head of the IGP’s
appointed investigation team in the matter, CP (now AIG) Ahmadu Ali,
recently got rewarded with an AIGship promotion to be effected on 31st
day of July, 2013-his date of statutory retirement from the Force. This is even
when his investigation report has continued to be shrouded in secrecy by
having not been made public till date. If it had been discovered that
Christian and Igbo officers were involved, heads would have indeed
rolled.
Continued Militarization Of NPF &
Okiro’s Nomination As Next Chairman Of PSC: On 8th
day of May, 2013, Your Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, sent two lists
of nominees to the leadership of the Nigerian Senate, seeking their
confirmation as members of the Nigeria Police Service Commission and the
Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission. While Your Excellency
is commended for sticking to the Federal Character Principle in line
with Section 14(3) in selecting members of the two public bodies, Your
Excellency’s insistence on militarizing the NPF and encircling the
same people that contributed to the Force’s battered image and policing
failures in recent times, is unreservedly condemned.
Your Excellency had
in the said list, nominated retired IGP, Mike Mbama Okiro, from the
South-south geopolitical zone as the new chairman of the PSC. Other
members nominated are: Retired DIG, Yakubu Mohammed-Northwest, retired Hon.
Justice Olufunke Adekeye-Southwest, Aisha Larai Tukur-Northeast , Mrs.
Comfort Obi-Southeast, Mr. Tongee Gem Toranylin-North-central and Dr. Otive
Igbuzor-South-south. The retention of Mrs. Comfort Obi and Dr. Otive Igbuzor,
who were members of the abysmally performed erstwhile PSC, is also
condemned. New members of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission,
which has former Senator Ken Nnamani from the Southeast geopolitical zone as
chairman, were also commendably selected in accordance with Section 14(3).
Our leadership as well as other leading
social voices and civil society organizations in Nigeria and beyond has
consistently opposed the appointment of retired senior police officers to head
the Police Service Commission. They can be made members of the Commission, but
not heads of same. The main idea of setting up the PSC is to police the
police from the civil polity and not to militarize it. Retired
police officers who are made to head the PSC, as the retired DIG, Parry
Osayande’s immediate past era has shown, are most likely to engage in nepotism,
favoritism, corruption and unprofessional midwifery of the Force.
The PSC under them can also not function independently. The Nigeria
Police Force had since the return to civil rule in 1999, been battered and
eaten up by hydra-headed monsters of corruption through roadblock
extortion, illegal custody bail fees and return culture;
indiscriminate roadblock shootings and killings, pretrial killings,
ethnocentrism, religious fundamentalism and institutionalization of mediocrity
and unprofessionalism. The said hydra-headed monsters, which included
indiscriminate mounting of roadblocks and extortion, roadblock shootings and
killings, pretrial killings and return culture, were
unreservedly a routine under Mike Okiro’s IGPship, from 2007 to
2009. It was under his police midwifery that the armada of electoral fraud
called 2007 general elections was conducted using the NPF
to perpetrate it with impunity. Credit will always go to the present IGP,
Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar as the only IGP in the history of the NPF in recent
times, who had made proactive efforts at taming the high incidence of roadblock
extortion, shootings and killings, notwithstanding pockets of breaches across
the country.
Predictably, the Okiro’s chairmanship of
the PSC will not go beyond the continued promotion of nepotism and favoritism,
which breeds ethnicity, mediocrity, unprofessionalism and corruption in the
NPF. There is also a serious question mark to Okiro’s integrity and character.
For instance, it is on record that he retired statutorily in 2009 as Nigeria’s
IGP after attaining the mandatory age of 60; that is to say that he is 64 years
old this year (2013). The Senate President, David Mark, recently turned 65. The
integrity question is:
Facially and bodily looking; between Okiro and David
Mark, who is older than the other? Is Okiro in his 60s or 70s or more? Or is he
terminally ill? These integrity questions are necessary because we strongly
believe that one of the main reasons behind Your Excellency’s nomination
of Mr. Mike Okiro was because of perceived impeccability of his character. In
this circumstance, though, we are having our say, while Your
Excellency is possibly having Your Excellency’s way, but it will be
socially disastrous for Nigeria to have another five wasted years in the
Okiro’s chairmanship of the PSC without any tangible way forward for the highly
battered, professionally defaced and ethnically divided NPF. Beyond
strong moral question mark on Okiro’s character, he is constitutionally unfit
to be the PSC chairman, having been a well known card-carrying member of the
PDP, which is forbidden by the PSC Act of 2001 and Section 156 of the 1999
Constitution. Section 156 forbids any head of the federal bodies created by
Section 153 of the Constitution such as the Police Service Commission, from
belonging to a political party. Up till April 2013, Mr. Mike Okiro functioned
as chief of staff to the national Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party,
Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and contested for a senatorial election under the PDP
during the last poll in Nigeria. The re-appointment of Mrs. Comfort Obi and Dr.
Otive Igbuzor also appeared to have been done in breach of Section 156.
The inability of Your Excellency to
consult widely and appropriately nowadays before making appointments into
sensitive public bodies like the PSC that has a rigid tenure of five years has
become worrisome. Today, political party arsonists and brigands have
found their way into sacred public bodies like federal universities and other
higher educational and health institutions in the form of board members and
chairmen. Conversely, sensitive appointments made during Your
Excellency’s transitional presidency appeared credibly spotless, unlike Your
Excellency’s present day board appointments. The NERC, NHRC and INEC
Boards, are some of such popular appointments in 2010 and early 2011. On the
issue of the constitution of new board for the Police Service Commission, we
had expected Your Excellency to shop for credible, impeccable and
seminal personalities such as Prof. Etinibi Alemika; one of Nigeria’s
celebrated and foremost criminologists, who is also the NPF’s consultant, to
head the new Police Service Commission.
In all, the worst era for Nigeria’s
PSC remains the immediate past era of retired DIG, Parry Osayande(April
2008-April 2013) and the best era so far for the Commission was the era under
Chief Simon Okeke(November 2001-November 2006). Unlike retired DIG, Parry
Osayande’s failed team, composed of persons with perceived empty
academic and social titles; Chief Simon Okeke’s team was made up of the unofficial
president of Nigeria, during the Abacha’s military’s inglorious epoch; Mrs.
Ayo Obe(former president of Nigeria’s Civil Liberties
Organization-1995-2003). Others were: Hon. Justice O. Olatawura( a retired
Justice of the Supreme Court), Alhaji Sani Ahmed Daura(a retired police AIG),
Dr. Mrs. Aishatu Abdulkadir( a leading feminist & social Amazon), Mr. Ray
Ekpu(a seasoned journalist and reputable personality) and Alhaji Rufai
Mohammed.
Igbo-Southeast As Endangered Species
Under Your Excellency’s Presidency: It is correct to say that the
Igbo-Southeast have lost at least 2,500 of their sons and daughters since Your
Excellency’s transitional and substantive presidency from May, 2010. The
slaughtering of the zone’s sons and daughters is predicated by their killers,
especially the killer Hausa-Fulani Muslim zealots, on false notion that there
is no difference between Your Excellency’s Ijaw tribe and the Igbo race.
As the most Christian populated race in Nigeria, there is no iota of doubt that
the Igbo-Southeast are being targeted for total castration and elimination.
During the 2011 post election violence in the 12 northern States of Nigeria,
out of over 1000 people killed in both pre-election and post election
violence that engulfed the country that period, at least 40% or 400 of them
were from the Igbo-Southeast. The zone also lost at least 20 members of the
National Youth Service Corps to both election and Boko Haram violence including
the Bauchi killing of April 2011 and the Suleja INEC bombings of April 2011.
Between January 2011 and January 2012,
approximately 510 sons and daughters of the Igbo-Southeast were murdered in
Boko Haram bomb and weapons attacks in various parts of the country including
the Madalla Igbo massacre of December 25, 2011 and the Mubi Igbo massacre of
January 6, 2012. In the Jos township ethno-religious attacks of 2010 and 2011,
at least 300 sons and daughters of the Igbo-Southeast were murdered. In 2010
alone, up to 800 people were killed in Jos violence. The killings included the
24th December, 2010 bomb blasts in churches populated by worshippers
of the Igbo-Southeast that killed at least 80 worshippers. On 8th
day of January, 2011, 40 Igbo traders were massacred in Dilimi Terminus Market,
Jos in Plateau State, North-central Nigeria. On 18th day of March,
2013, over 150 citizens of the Igbo-Southeast extraction were killed in the
Sabon Gari, Kano bus park bomb blasts that killed up to 180 people. In the 2011
post election violence, over 350 churches, according to the Christian
Association of Nigeria, were burnt or destroyed in northern parts of the
country. Ninety percent of these churches were built and populated by the
Christian worshippers of the Igbo-Southeast extraction resident in northern
Nigeria. Instances are too many to mention. It is utterly disheartening that in
spite of these supreme sacrifices paid by the sons and daughters of the zone
with respect to Your Excellency’s presidency, the zone remains an
endangered species under Your Excellency’s administration. The zone is
further castrated and disempowered by being ostracized from federal
appointments and promotions such as in the Nigeria Police Force.
Condolences Over The Killing Of Over 100
Security Personnel In Two Days: We deeply extend our condolences to Your
Excellency and the State of Nigeria over the reported loss of over 100
security personnel in two days; 07-05-2013 and 08-05-2013 in Bama, Borno State,
Northeast Nigeria and Lafia in Nasarawa State, North-central Nigeria. While 22
police personnel, 14 prisons officials and two soldiers were reportedly killed
alongside four civilians and 13 insurgents in Bama by Hoko Haram Islamists,
credible independent sources including the Vanguard Newspaper and the BBC
Hausa Service, said that 88(BBC quoting a source at Dalhatu Araf Specialist
Hospital in Lafia) security personnel, mainly from the NPF Mobile Force were killed
in Lafia by the Ombatse Shrine armed militias. Twenty-eight(State government),
out of 117 security personnel(Vanguard) that went for the professionally failed
operation were reported to have been found alive, while eight, out of eleven
security patrol vans involved in the abortive operation, were burnt beyond
recognition. The high casualty figures associated with police law enforcement
operations in the country in recent times is a direct consequence of the
promotion and sustenance of ethnicity, religious bigotry, favoritism,
nepotism and mediocrity in the Force. The official mangling of
casualty figures in Nigeria has caught up with the NPF in this respect.
Conclusion:
We conclusively state that the people of the Igbo-Southeast must
be protected at all times from other malicious Nigerians and given their
rightful position in Nigeria’s socio-political scene. We reiterate our sacred
demands contained in the letter above quoted and attached including an
immediate end to the castration and exclusion of the Southeast zone from
sensitive federal appointments and promotions including the Nigeria Police
Force. Also the presidential delays in punishing the heads of the NPF for
inexplicable high death toll of the Nigerian security personnel in 48 hours are
very shocking and worrisome. We also call on Your Excellency to
withdraw the names of Mr. Mike Okiro, Dr. Otive Igbuzor and Mrs. Comfort Obi as
Your Excellency’s nominees for the PSC Board from the Senate and replace
them with other distinguished personalities.
Yours
Faithfully,
For: International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law, Nigeria
Emeka
Umeagbalasi, Chairman of the Board
Mobile
Phone Nos.: 08033601078, 08180103912
Website:
intersociety-ng.org
CC:
The Executive Chairman, Federal Character
Commission, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria
Deputy Senate President, Federal Republic
of Nigeria, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria
Deputy
Speaker, House of Reps, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria
