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By Erasmus Ikhide
JUNE 21 marks the 66th birthday of the 18th Nigerian Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Ehigiator Arase, who retired from the nation’s police force at the highest echelon six years ago. Barely a little above half of a decade after leaving the service, his sterling career at the Nigeria Police Force is universally benchmarked as the ultimate gold standard for rectitude and integrity in modern Nigerian public service.
A man with little patience for slackers and slobs, Arase is an exceptional individual who is an absolute stickler for rules, regulations, institution-building and responsibility. Not only did he have his eyes on the ball as a member of the intelligentsia in service, he was also result-oriented through and through. His kind of cerebral security engagement and unequalled commitment to thoroughness is largely lacking in the police force, presently. Did the much admired and well venerated Arase descend from heaven? No! Was he trained in outer space that no current police officers are privy? No!!
What that means is that the Nigeria Police Force needs new ethical order and structural rearmarment, if it must serve its purpose. Arase’s recuperative landmarks and re-engineering of the force intelligence gathering machine remain redemptive tropes that can only be carried out by an assertive visionary police officer of his kind. Arase was truly a lone star in the police’s transformative heroes’ list! This noble and notable avatar till date remains the crusader who mopped up cultism across swathes of the country and restored integrity to the force.
Arase’s stellar quality and achievements in his service to the nation once again caught President Muhammadu Buhari’s attention last year when he wished the decorated officer “the very best in health and strength as he continues to serve the nation, especially in advocacy.” He noted the reforms that the former Inspector-General brought to the police in Nigeria, deploying his wealth of experience of working and training in many parts of the world to visualise and domesticate operations.
The President also commended the way and manner Arase headed the topmost intelligence-gathering unit of the Nigerian Police, the Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Bureau. Buhari joined family members, friends and associates of the versatile retired officer in celebrating another milestone, “coloured with recognitions from achievements of serving at national and international duties.”
Even President Buhari as a hermit – in all his frailties – recognised, acknowledged the fact that the former IGP was famous for his stout and stoic strides for excellence in the national security architecture, being an intrepid tribune of tackling security nemesis plaguing the nation through multifaceted approach, dubbed ‘stick-and-carrot’ strategy.
In 2015, the former IGP’s wealth of experience and unassailable wisdom saved the day when Alhaji Bukola Saraki staged a daylight coup and became the Senate President of the eighth Senate, against all odds and in the midst of obvious security breeches. It’s only an Arase with an illustrous spirit, patriotism, magnificent capacity to curtail ominously self-imposed nightmares by a political party (APC) that chooses to ignore the most basic and rudimentary lessons of allotting positions/offices in the hall of victory.
Time and again, Arase demonstrated in service that a Nigeria reduced of high levels of crime and criminality is possible, if the right people are at the helm and the needed and urgent support could be availed the traumatized police force. Because Nigeria police officers and men have been abandoned and poorly cared for, they take solace in brutalisation and exploitation of innocent denizens who should have ordinarily been protected by the same police force.
Even though we are at the tail end of Nigeria’s security relapse, a nation in the throes of brigandage, barbarity and monstrosity without the slightest pretext of national security architecture colluding with gun-toting bandits, ISWAP, Boko Haram wholesale, Nigeria can overcome the visited woes, if it is its luck to have another Arase and a thinking President on time. Because, as they say, time is the greatest enemy of tyrants!
Truth be told, Arase is an authority in forensic brilliance and intelligence gathering and has been tested as the nation’s police top brass. His kind is in short supply and that explains the present doomsday security collapse that Nigerians have been going through recently. This has been proven most glaringly in recent time. For example, terrorists of different hues attack southern Nigeria churches, killing dozens in one fell swoop, which has become a national embarrassment on a daily basis in northern Nigeria.
For Arase, it’s celebration time to serenade joyously in the land of the noble and upright as a visionary and iconic police boss who has contributed immeasurably to the entire nation-building process. This is the time of symphony and perfect synchrony, when a man who lives up to the billing of his name, when service to his nation resonates through the mirror for the collective aspirations and willed identity of an institution like the police force, in spite of the present calamity.
Garlands to the physically brave, inimitable genius and a no-nonsense stalwart intelligence czar from the land of the feisty and brave, having climbed the greasy pole of security ascension to the mountain top!
•Ikhide wrote from Lagos; [email protected]
