Following the appointment of Usman Baba as the acting Inspector General of Police, Mike Ozekhome who is a human rights lawyer, has condemned President Muhammadu Buhari for northernising the Nigeria Police Force.
Ozekhome has made it known that with Mohammed Dingyadi as the Minister of Police Affairs, and Usman Baba as the Inspector General of Police this has shown how nepotistic the President is.
Reacting to this through a statement Ozekhome, who had earlier kicked against the extension of the tenure of Adamu, said going by “paragraph 7 to the 3rd Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, the President cannot single-handedly appoint an IGP, as he has again unconstitutionally and illegally done.
The lawyer made it known that, “He can only do so in conjunction with the Nigeria Police Council comprising of Mr President as chairman, all the 36 state Governors, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission and the IGP”.
He added that, “Such an appointment as just happened before the new Acting IGP is capricious, arbitrary, whimsical, unconscionable, illegal, unlawful, wrongful and unconstitutional”. “It eulogises strong men rather than strong institutions”.
He stressed that, “Today, Buhari has again appointed DIG Usman Alkali Baba, a Northern Muslim, as Acting Inspector General of Police, to replace Adamu Mohammad, another Northern Muslim”. “With Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi, another Northern Muslim as the Minister of Police Affairs, the circle of policing in Nigeria is complete”.
Ozekhome probed that, “Is Buhari telling Nigerians that under his governance, Nigerians are indeed living in the Federal Republic of the North, or Northern Republic of Nigeria, or Republic of Northern Nigeria, or Northern Nigeria Republic, Republic of Northern Nigeria and Other Vassal States ?. I can’t decode Buhari’s defiant refusal to respect the Federal Character principle enshrined in section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution. Or, can you?”
Add Comment