The recent call by a group of elders, the Southern, Middle Belt Leaders Forum for the removal of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris and chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmnoud Yakubu is a patriotic gesture by concerned elder statesmen. The Forum raised the alarm that Nigeria may be rolling down towards anarchy if the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government does not act decisively.
On their own part some opposition politicians have alleged that the government is planning to target some opposition figures and elder statesmen such as General T.Y. Governor Nonyem Wike of Rivers State and former aviation Minister Femi Fani Kayode. They allege that the Buhari-led government is planning to frame them up including other elder statesmen such as General T.Y. Danhuma, General Ibrahim Babangida former president Goodluck Jonathan and others to ensure critics of government are silenced as the country moves closer to 2019 elections. Already former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently alleged plans by the Buhari government to implicate and silence him.
The Elders Forum comprising Chief Edwin Clerk, Ayo Adebanjo, Chief John Nwodo, Ezeife among others, equally accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) governments of extreme intolerance with patriots.
After several hours of meeting in Abuja, the Forum in a communiqué expressed worry about the current overheating of the polity as it said politics continues to overshadow governance in our country with its attendant national embarrassment as professionalism is fast becoming alien in many of our public institutions. The Forum cited the latest in the serial assaults on decency in public affairs as the audacious refusal of the police to submit to civil authority and the elastic tolerance of the growing impurity of its Inspector General.
We recall that the IGP defied the authority of the president when he refused to relocated to Benue State to restore law and order. No sanction has been imposed on him for the defiance.
For this and other reasons we agree with the Forum that unless something drastic is done immediately, Nigeria may gradually roll towards anarchy, as all sense of decency and order have been eroded.
We make haste to also frown at the insulting utterances of a police spokesman who, taking a cue from his boss described a sitting Governor as ‘a drowning man’ and how the IGP has flagrantly refused to honour Senate’s invitation to explain why the authority has not been able to stop the killings across the country and bring the killers to book.
It is lamentable that the president of the Republic in spite of all the perceived killings of the IGP has neither queried now sanctioned the officer. It is even very vexing that by the career record of this IGP no outstanding performance stands out to make Mr. President keep such a man in such an esteemed office except the fact that he was commissioner of police in Kano in 2015…
Based on the above points raised by the forum and in view of the consequences of a gradually overheating the polity, we call on the APC led government to re-assure Nigerians and disabuse their minds that there is plan to implicate to silence opposition leadership or critics of government or even plan to humiliate former leaders.
