How More Wasteful Can The Police Force Be? By Garba Shehu
Before the advent of modern bureaucracies, European States operated a spoils system, by which every administration brings its civil servants from top to bottom. When their term of office is over, the civil servants all leave office with the government that brought them.
Max Webber, who many consider as the father of bureaucracy, the modern system of government administration blamed the spoils system for its lack of continuity and waste. Since then, bureaucracy had been the order of the day all over the world. The only exception is perhaps when you are dealing with Nigeria’s security services, especially the police force.
Our disciplined services including the customs and immigration operate is silos, blissfully unaware of modern systems of administration. They are so wasteful of well-trained, experienced and cherished human resources you begin to think that that is possibly why a barefooted set of bandits has stolen more than 300 girls and nobody can get them back for nearly three months.
I am frightened by the large number of well-trained officers the country continues to lose through premature retirements in the police, army, navy, airforce, Customs and immigration. A former Chief of Army Staff, General Ihejirika once mooted the idea of having the retirement age of service personnel raised to 70 years and I liked what he said.
They just announced the appointment of a new Inspector-General of Police in the person of Sulaiman Abba, before now, an Assistant Inspector-General, AIG and the press is awash with reports that all serving Deputy Inspectors-General of Police, DIGs and an unspecified number of AIGs will be retired. For what reason? For the fact that they joined the police ahead of the new IG.
“All officers that were ahead of the new IGP has (sic) been forcefully retired,” a source at the Louis Edet House, Police Headquarters, was quoted as saying by the online newspapers “Greenbarge Reporters.” A source at the Police Service Commission listed the victims of this career extermination exercise as being DIGs Peter Gana, Michael Zuokumor, Dauda Sulaiman Fakai, Philemon Leha, Emmanuel Udorji, Marvel Akpoyibo, Abdulrahman A. Kano, Atiku Kafur.
The sources quoted by the newspaper went on to add that “the likes of Solomon Arase, AIG in charge of Intelligence Bureau and Dan Azumi Doma, AIG Force Secretary… might be affected, as they were strong contenders for the post of IGP. Their retirement may become necessary to avert any form of personality clash…”
Notwithstanding the exciting news of the appointment of a new IGP, we must be the only one in the world where the crème of the top echelon of the police is kicked out nearly every two years. Before IG Abubakar who just left, the one he succeeded, Ringim was also fired along with six DIGs.
Ringim’s six DIGs expelled at the point of his departure were Ivy Uche Okoronkwo, Azubuike Udoh, Sardauna Abubakar, Audu Abubakar, Saleh Abubakar and Muhammadu Yusuf.
I know that all these DIGs and the AIGs who are being expelled were not a bunch of rotten apples. They were well trained at home and abroad, some of it by the United Nations. They had impeccable careers that warranted their promotion to the top. They were not rogues in the system. They were not operating a gang within the police, out to ruin the other good officers. Based on their sheer number alone, nothing can be more cruel, wasteful and destructive. If anyone is a keen observer, the only conclusion to draw from these expulsions is that there is no culture of public and social service in the so called disciplined organization. It is either out of the sadistic nature of people who delight in seeing heads roll or out of a deliberate plot to create fear and uncertainty as necessary ingredients for entrenched corruption. It is important however that our leaders be more human in the way they treat fellow human beings. It is wrong that they behave like high school bullies who only pick on the weakest and the most defenseless.
It is equally important that we get our priorities right. Experience is necessary to execute any work. If you take away Ogbonna Onovo who featured as IGP in a freak-like incident for about only a year, no serving Deputy Inspector-General, DIG ever made it to the all-important post in the last 20-25 years. I don’t know what they have against the deputies, that each time there is an opening to name a new IG, they always chose them from the third-ranking post of AIGs. With that, all DIG are expelled. These past IGs who served in the period mentioned above are Aliyu Atta, Ibrahim Coomassie, Musliu Smith, Mustapha Adebayo Balogun, Sunday Ehindero, Mike Mbama Okiro, Hafiz Rimgim, Mohammed Abubakar and now Sulaiman Abba – all AIGs. So what is the DIG post for? An unfortunate and jinxed post? They have made it a burial ground for brilliant careers and I think this is wrong. Perhaps it is time to revise the process through which the IGPs and the heads of military and quasi-military institutions are chosen. It is important that there is federal character. This has the noble goal of promoting inclusiveness. But this must be taken together with a merit-based system. Nigeria is rapidly growing and its institutions are evolving. At this stage of our development, the country needs its finest minds in the security and public services.
It will be better to determine careers by effectiveness of officers than by how long or worse, a spoils system. Officers in the police should be subject to written examinations, followed with an interview to assess their abilities to raise policing. They should be tested on their analytical and problem-solving skills and anyone found lacking should have their jobs taken from them. A DIG who has acquired great skills through training and experience in say, fighting terrorism and is doing well on the job shouldn’t be expelled simply on account of a lower-ranking officer being made head of the police. Doing that deprives the nation of an officer the service and the country need. We all know that the appointment of an IG or army chief is more political than anything. There is no need pretending that it is not, even if the reason we do so is to save careers and retain well-trained and skilled service personnel. Enough of this wastage of acutely needed human resources.
Read More Articles From This Author: Garba Shehu
[myad]
The Anatomy Of Femi Fani-Kayode, By Olusegun Dada
Ordinarily, someone like Femi Fani Kayode shouldn’t draw me out of essay writing/blogging retirement but since no one else is willing to gag our village mad man, I have offered to.
Who is Femi Fani Kayode? Why does he believe so much in himself? What makes this guy tick?
Why does he feel the need to contribute to social and political commentary like a man with the attention lifespan of a wall gecko?
Why does he always feel the need to be a voice on vital issues on national security?
These are the questions that I get asked every time I discuss Femi’s latest garbage with anyone. He is so painful to watch. Someone who’s parents paid so much to get the best of education and life only for him to turn out to be a village drunk/mad man.
A village drunk is everyone’s source of entertainment. He is the man that is funny to watch on display. He is who, when everyone claps in excitement because of his insanity, he thinks it is actually an approval from his “fans.” He fancies himself a leader. Those who follow him only do for the humor. He is a confused man.
this is an effort in futility. Where do I even start to analyze the man that is Femi Fani-Kayode? As President Olusegun Obasanjo’s spokesman, Minister of Culture and later, Minister of Aviation, he reeked and still reeks of failure in public service, mismanagement of funds kept in his trust, mal-administration and brazen abuse of office.
Until a few weeks back, Femi Fani Kayode was being investigated by the EFCC in connection with the alleged misappropriation of N19.5billion (N19,500,000,000) before the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration wrote off his sins as part of the transformation agenda of the president which has also helped transform and sanitize the likes of DSP Alamieyesiegha, Peter Odili, Olabode George, Ayo Fayose, Iyiola Omisore, Adebayo Alao Akala and, most recently, Tafa Balogun (former Inspector General of Police) and Ali Momodu Sherrif ( former governor of Borno state and rumored Boko Haram biggest sponsor).
Political prostitution is not new in Nigeria, but for the Fani-Kayodes, it is a rite of passage. Femi’s father, Remi Fani-Kayode, was a member of the House of Representatives until he lost the Ife Federal Constituency to an independent candidate, Michael Omisade, a close associate of Chief Awolowo, all of them Action Group members. Remi Fani-Kayode had pleaded with Awolowo to prevail on Chief Omisade not to contest as an independent against him. Awolowo’s reaction was that the electorate should be allowed to decide.
Eventually he was defeated by Omisade in one of the shocking results in the 1959 federal elections. Remi Fani-Kayode, (Femi’s father) resigned from Action Group and joined NCNC, the platform on which he contested the 1961 elections to the Western House of Assembly. He won and became an opposition leader.
A year later, the crisis in Action Group led to declaration of emergency in the Western Region for six months. In January 1963, opposition leader, Remi Fani-Kayode, led his party members into a coalition administration with Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, as premier, with his new party, the United Peoples Party. Within weeks, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode and all NCNC members (except a lone star, Chief Richard Akinyemi) crossed the carpet, betrayed NCNC and joined forces for a new party, Nigerian National Democratic Party, NNDP.
Morally, Femi Fani Kayode is as morally bankrupt as Cleopatra of Egypt, as one who isn’t a moralist or anything. Femi surpasses the line drawn for public officers in terms of morality. Allegations from him being a drug addict who went into a rehab home in Ghana not so long ago to using his security detail to brutalize the boyfriend(s) of his numerous women might not be far from the reasons why he is almost always erratic.
Femi Fani-Kayode is a disease. With every sentence emanating from his lips embedded in pure human waste. Femi is also the definition of a small man. A pictorial definition of men who younger men should never grow up to be like. Everything that Femi Fani-Kayode has done and will do has been done by someone in the past.
People like Femi end up in history as people who came, saw and became ‘A’ Class dogs for other people. In the dustbin of history. I must also use this medium to apologize for the strong words that may have offended the loyal readers of this column and to ask for the continuous prayers of our readers for the president to remember Fani-Kayode and bless him with an appointment soon. [myad]