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The appraisal of any police officer is usually carried out by his superiors because appraisal affords the senior the chance to fully assess and evaluate professional activities, including recorded successes, failures and input of the officer.
Indeed, appraisal helps to determine if an officer has done well during a particular period, to guage if he is qualified to be promoted or to be abandoned in his rank. Usually, appraisals cover a stretch of time of performance and no police officer wants his assessment form to be dented with red ink or query, which could indicate a big problem.
However, there is one police officer that no one can fill his asssessment form, except the President and Commander-in-chief, Muhammmadu Buhari, who has the mandate of the electorate to appoint a police chief to provide them with security. That officer is the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), who is a public servant.
After being in the saddle for one year, it is expedient for the people to appraise the professional performance of IGP Muhammed Adamu.
Such exercise at this level can only achieve either a positive or negative impact on the officer. It can either earn him a applause from members of the public who appraised him, and is regarded as his legacy, or he is tagged, like ex-IGP Ibrahim Idris, a failure, an incompetent officer not fit to hold any public or institutional office.
Appraisal is the cumulative assessment of the performance of an officer within a specific time frame, with a view to ascertaining whether the officer is fit to be promoted. Unfortunately, many appraisals have been stained with religious, ethnic and corrupt money considerations.
One year of Adamu’s assessment spans from January 15, 2019, to date.
When he took over from Idris, the level of insecurity was at its peak. Killer herdsmen, bandits and vicious kidnappers were on rampage in virtually all the states and the Federal Capital Territory. The elite, religious leaders and ordinary Nigerians were not spared along the highways. Adamu’s experience as an Interpol top-notch officer propelled him to immediately put on his thinking cap. Unfortunately, Adamu did not know the gravity of the rot left behind by his runaway predecessor, who had polluted the police system before he was appointed. The truth blasted him and his management team in the face and there were cries of “help, help” from innocent members of the public who were daily being picked up like fowls by kidnappers. There and then, Adamu realised that the office he was occupying was not a tea party. Adamu changed his security strategy and, from the blues, on April 5, 2019, a security exercise codenamed Operation Puff Adder was launched in answer to the excesses of the marauding criminals. Puff Adder was to be a special, proactive and intelligence-led police operation to rid Kaduna-Abuja Expressway, Kogi, Katsina, Niger, and Zamfara states of criminals. Before long, Nigerians came to the realisation of the effectiveness of the new security strategy, which led to the arrest of over 1,527 kidnappers, 2,627 armed robbers, 758 murder suspects, and 1,621 cultists. Also, over 2,037 assorted firearms were recovered, while 945 kidnap victims were rescued and 1,662 stolen vehicles recovered.
Adamu was not yet done. He was now spitting fire in every direction. Yanking off state police commissioners that could not fit into his new dream of a secure country, Adamu was having sleepless nights, researching on better strategies that could better enhance security in Nigeria. Coincidentally, that was the period the President, who had travelled overseas, was returning to the country. At the airport, where all the service chiefs were on hand to welcome him, the President sighted Adamu in company with other service chiefs and drew their attention to the attenuating stature of the IGP, describing him as “lean” while working very hard.
Adamu was making his mark. He further noticed that a man does not live by working alone, so he started pushing for better welfare for police personnel.
It is a truism that out of every 12 there must be a Judas. So, Adamu did not spare the rod on any erring police officer, as many of them were shown the way out of the police system. As the 20th indigenous IGP, Adamu started relating better with all past IGPs, in a bid to tap from their wealth of experience, and this paid off in the way and manner he related with traditional rulers, politicians and leaders of other security services.
As the results emerged from the operational adventures of Puff Adder, Adamu further gave more teeth to other squads within the police. The tactical police departments, Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Special Tactical Squad (STS), Police Mobile Force (PMF), Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), and the dreaded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) were re-energergised to carry out major operations , thereby checkmating the activities of violent criminals around the country.
Even while all his attention was on how to strengthen the police, the IGP allowed himself to be distracted. When a leader loses focus while on a national assignment, many issues would be neglected, as it happened with the recruitment saga pitting the Force Headquarters under Adamu against the Police Service Commission. The tug of war was merely to see who blinked first. The distraction gave the nation sleepless nights, as the media feasted on the situation. This allowed criminals to feather their nest. By the time both sheathed their swords, many innocent Nigerians had been kidnapped. Newspaper headlines were rife with stories of insecurity. Because there was distraction, the police was either stepping on the big toes of other security agencies or the police was on the receiving side of the tackles. One of such was the unfortunate shooting of police officers on duty to arrest a kidnap kingpin in Taraba State. Same with the police clash with the Civil Defence Corps in Lagos. These infringements were mere diversionary and unnecessary.
Many see Adamu as a very committed, quiet and soft-spoken officer who wants to leave a good legacy. Even from his one-year outing, he has scored above average, with high anticipation that in the coming year he would provide the security cover that Nigerians need, so that there will be no traces of crime or violence on our roads or during elections. They want to see the Army only when it is absolutely necessary.
(To be continued)
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New book on insurgency
“ln God’s name we fight”
Written by Yusuf Abubakar Mamud, a lecturer at the National Defence College, “In God’s name we fight” makes a good read. It’s a true-life story of how a young undergraduate medical student of the University of Maiduguri embraced violent extremism and how, in swift reaction, his family mobilized members of the community, including religious leaders, educators and leaders of influence to eventually help him denounce violent extremism.
The book speaks to enthusiastic youths who are vulnerable to the manipulative preaching of some religious leaders. It argues that government countering violent extremism strategy without the cooperation the family unit, religious leaders and people of influence within the communities can only amount to a wasted venture.
The book subtly advocates the use of repentant violent extremists in the fight against violent extremism in Nigeria.
