A human rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) has stated that the appointment of Abubakar Mohammed Adamu, another Northern Muslim from Lafia, Nasarawa State, North-central Nigeria, as the Inspector-General of Police, is a slap on the face of South-Easterners.
The group said the shame of the shunning of Igbo officers in the appointment of a new Inspector-General is even bigger on some South-East leaders and governors who have been canvassing for votes for President Muhammadu Buhari.
In a statement signed by the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the group, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi, Intersociety said it was a shame that despite the calls for the appointment of an officer from the South-East for the IG position as a way of placating the people of the zone for their non representation in the security architecture of the country, the president did otherwise.
The statement read, “It is also our position that the appointment of Police AIG Abubakar Adamu Muhammed, is not only a slap on the face of Igbo Nation, but also the Buharists in Southeast Nigeria including the Southeast Govs in general and Govs William Obiano and Dave Umahi of Anambra and Ebonyi States in particular.
“They should go and bury their faces in shame. If such brazen regional isolation in the country’s top security architecture could repeatedly be manifested and cemented in this crucial national election campaign period, then the position of the Igbo Nation in the country’s scheme of things in post 2019 election Nigeria is irreversibly or intractably doomed and darkened.”
The group said in one of its publication, it disclosed that out of the country’s 22 top security and justice establishments and their headships, 18 are held by the North and four by the South; out of which 19 are Muslims with only three Christians.
It said none of those 22 top security positions was allocated to the South-East, and that it had advised the president to show that he does not hate the people of the South-East as has been severally said, by appointing a top police officer from the zone to the position of the Inspector-General of Police, upon the retirement of the previous, but regretted that such plea failed.
It said, “The Buhari Administration is totally condemned for refusing to appoint a senior police from the Southeast as next IGP to console the Region from the past four years of central and regional socio-political segregation, exclusion and structural violence.”
The group also said that the former IG, Ibrahim Idris, stayed 12 illegal days after his stated date of retirement, alleging that he may have falsified his date of birth to gain 12 more days in office, after he was supposed to vacate office on 3rd January 2019.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria is therefore called upon to thoroughly and conclusively investigate former IGP Ibrahim Idris over the subject matter and recover all public funds including overheads and operational costs as well as paraphernalia allowances, personal earnings and other illegitimately authorized expenditures; cumulatively authorized and spent by former IGP Idris in his 12 illegal days in office as Nigeria’s IGP or between 3rd and 15th January 2019,” the group said.
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