I became fascinated by his passion for internal security when, as the governor of Lagos State, terror was unleashed as armed criminals were killing on the one hand and an indigenous criminal gang known as Odua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) were terrorizing Lagosians on the other hand.
The killings claimed personalities like Commodore Tony lkhazeboh, a white man was killed in a restaurant along Adeniran Ogunsanya street and many other personalities. Bola Tinubu rose to the occasion with Mike Okiro, who was transferred from Benue State by the then Inspector-General of Police Musiliu Smith to curb the trend of killings.
According to Okiro, “Tinubu provided everything we requested for the operation and approved my suggestion for the establishment of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS).
The success of the police-controlled security squad brought a turnaround to the situation and improvement in Lagos State’s security. The 80 pages security manifesto of the Tinubu campaign is all-encompassing.
Says Tinubu, “When I was governor of Lagos, my team and I developed institutions and policies that changed the face of the state. It became a safe place for its residents and an engine of prosperity for all those willing to work in pursuit of their economic dreams.
The fundamental responsibility of government is to protect the life and property of its citizens. We will mobilise the totality of our national security, military and law enforcement assets to protect all”.
Despite the unfortunate unresolved controversy that emanated from the presidential election, an evaluation of all the presidential candidates shows that Tinubu’s security manifesto looks more practical, while others either copied and paste or were trying to fulfill all righteousness by merely presenting a security manifesto. Apart from Timubu and Peter Obi, no other presidential candidate addressed issues of insecurity.
Atiku Abubakar, despite being the Vice President did not have the opportunity to supervise any security situation in the country. There is the belief or stereotype that an older leader is a wiser leader; age and wisdom are not always directly connected.
Aging affects leadership in several different ways, depending on the personal beliefs and viewpoints of the aging leader. Some people become more effective leaders as they get older and some become less effective. Could it be that the old age syndrome really affected President Muhammadu Buhari, who in the early stage of his administration was able to assemble result-oriented officers who reclaimed 13 local governments earlier captured by Boko Haram in Borno State?
Recruitment and operational leadership demands a strong body and mind for leaders and the troops. No wonder Nigeria’s successes started depreciating when it became obvious that health and age were the militating factors against sound security decisions, to the overall detriment of our security.
To this extent, only courageous security leaders can begin grappling with the bull by the horns, in the overall security interest of the country.
(To be continued)
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Expensive shit and expensive slap
In 1974, amarverick Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, startled Nigerians when, as a suspect of the police, he was thrown into detention by the court for alledgedly taking of illicit substances believed to be Indian hemp, at the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Alagbon, which was made popular by Fela’s music.
Before Fela was arrested, he ate the joint, but the police brought him into custody and waited for him to produce the (titular) excrement. According to records, he managed to use another inmate’s faeces and was eventually released and he sang a song, which he titled “Expensive Shit”.
Today, 49 years after Fela stunned the world with the expensive shit episode, his son Oluseun Anikulapo Kuti, also a musician, has tried the confrontational track of his father in a clash with law enforcement officers, this time he was reported to have stamped an expensive slap on the robust cheek of a police officer who had a road misunderstanding with him after ramming into each other car at Maryland, Lagos. The expensive slap, which the police regarded as “assault,” has generated a lot of social media uproar.
According to report, Kuti who clocked 40 years last January 11, first raised his hand to slap an older person named Inspector Mohammed Aminu, not withstanding the obvious fact that he was a uniformed police officer. That slap was “Expensive” either as a joke or reality and should be condemned because Kuti forgot his school Civic lesson that “police officer and anyone in uniform should not be assaulted nor put in harm’s way because they are representatives of government at all levels.”
His spontaneous aggression against the police officer (an agent of government) spoke volumes. It is an expression of an inbuilt hatred against the Nigerian system. Many on our roads would do the same because they are aggrieved with the system. Unfortunately, the fracas was in full glare of his children as he publicly exhibited uncontrollable anger and un-Christian attitude towards a senior. On his part, the accosted officer profoundly exhibited uncommon restraint by not engaging Kuti in any brawl or open confrontation, an exemplary attitude that needs to be applauded and emulated by other police officers across the country.
Nigeria needs more police civil officers like Inspector Aminu, not brutes who inflict pain and execute injustice on innocent citizens. Even at that, is Nigeria not large enough to warrant a complete decentralization of the police?
Was the Seun Kuti incident not a Lagos State police command case? Was there no police commissioner in charge of Lagos State? Why did it take a pronouncement from the office of the Inspector-General of Police before charges were instituted against the suspect?
This is why state police is the best policing strategy anywhere in the world. The IGP’s regular intervention in local cases that could be addressed by either state or zonal police commanders often depreciates the power of these commanders. In fact, the unsolicited intervention of both the IGP and the chairman of Police Service Commission further exacerbated the case to the extent that the poIice is introducing the full weight of the law both written and unwritten to kill the supposedly small nauseating fly.
How do we explain the handcuffs on a sobering suspect who handed himself to the police on request? Furthermore, the police obtained a search warrant to carry out a search in his Ikeja residence probably to nose for enhancing drugs that might have empowered him to stamp that expensive slap on the police officer.
If all these are the aftermath of the assault, how come Seun Kuti’s open apology plus the monetary compensation and pleas from notable Nigerians, including pastors, were not able to assuage the Nigeria Police so that he was let off the hook with a written undertaking not to ever molest a police officer? After all, the police had in the past begged for forgiveness from Nigerians. An example was police apology to Dele Giwa, editor of Sunday Concord, in the1980s. The lesson has been learnt and, hopefully, correction would take place.