The removal of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Hafiz Ringim, which has been long over due, finally materialised Wednesday, 25, 2012 with President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan approving his proceeding on a terminal leave as he was due for retirement in March, 2012.
Mr. Ringim who took over the reigns of power as Acting IGP) at the Police Force Headquarters on September 8, 2010, had had the misfortune of inheriting a police force, beset with corruption, avarice, lacklustre and directionlessness.
For example, on assumption of office in full capacity on November 4, 2010, Mr. Ringim promised fire and brimstone against armed robbers and perpetrators of violent crimes in the country stating that there would be no hiding place for them again. He highlighted the curbing of violent crimes amongst others, as one of his five point agenda of making the Nigerian nation crime-free.
Unfortunately, even with all his tough posture, violent crimes in the country, took a sophisticated and very worrisome dimension with series of kidnappings, bombings by faceless groups, thus threatening the internal security of the country.
Nigerians have witnessed anti-social activities in the country before but never have they experienced the current state of sleeplessness and seeming hopeless and helplessness on the part of the police who is constitutionally charged with the security of lives and property of innocent and law-abiding citizens. Thus making them to lose confidence in their ability to protect them.
Flowing from this sordid state of inertia, Nigerians are left to prayers to God to help proffer answers to the myriad of security questions thrown up by the ineptitude of the Hafiz Ringim’s policing strategies of talking tough and doing less to combat violent crimes in Nigeria.
For instance, Nigerians are yet to come to terms with the fact that a religious sect which styles itself as Boko Haram, would be able to make nonsense of our security apparatuses, for more than 14 months and would still be looming large even as we speak without visible signs of the police, and by extension, other security agencies being able to contain the situation.
Never have the officers and men of the police force been so harassed, subdued and humiliated in the recent past, than we have witnessed under Mr. Hafiz Ringim.
The only time when the form of senseless killings and humiliation of the dark-coloured uniform men were molested, was under the reign of Mr. Etim Inyang as Inspector-General of Police when a group of common thieves under the command of Lawrence Anini and his right-hand man - Monday Osunbor humiliated and killed policemen in uniform with impunity.
The surgical operation performed on the force by way of purging it of most of the rotten eggs and corrupt officers and men of the force, gave a sigh of relief to the tax-paying Nigerians, who were getting very less and sometimes, non-existent security services from the police.
Corruption has once again, overwhelmed the force to the extent that an average Nigerian youth looks forward to enlisting in the police force, to obtain licence to extort money from innocent citizens and engage in power-play with defenceless citizens and for most times, engage in extra-judicial killings with little or no means of seeking redress against these callous and trigger-happy police officers.
Ultimately rising to the top of a corrupt organisation, there was no way Ringim would have been able to perform any magic. Otherwise, how do we explain the unresolved issues of the catalogues of Boko Haram senseless killings of hundreds of innocent citizens even on notice?
Now the Presidency is in a frenzy to effect a change in the police high command by the President’s approval of the sacking of all six Deputy Inspectors-General of Police and appointing an Assistant Inspector General to take over. The President needs to know that the Leopard may change its skin severally, but it can never shed its while spot.
This is against the backdrop of the new IGP, Mohammed Abubakar antecedents in Bauchi and Plateau States in which he was severally indicted for the unholy roles played by him by ordering a group of Muslim fanatics to attack innocent Christians in 2004 and 2006 respectively, when he was Commissioner of Police in those two states.
Consequently, THE NIGERIAN OBSERVER gives kudos to President Jonathan for bracing up to the challenge of the Police Force, though belatedly, by sacking the IGP and his six deputies even as he has also set up a Committee to seriously purge and cleanse the force, under the headship of a retired DIG, Mr. Parry Osayande who also is the Chairman of the Police Service commission (PSC).
Paramount amongst the terms of the committee’s reference is that which seeks to examine records of performance of officers and men of the force with a view to identifying those who can no longer fit into the system due to declining performance, age, indicipline, corruption and/or disloyalty, particularly among the AIGs, commissioners, officers and in the rank-and-file. A stitch in time saves nine.
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