It is not in doubt that the police conducted a search at the Abuja residence of elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark. What seems to be in dispute is the source of the authorization for the search.
Reports had it that a contingent of the Nigerian Police stormed the Abuja residence of Clark armed with a warrant to search his house. The policemen, who met the 91-year old statesman at home, were said to be acting on information that he stored a cache of arms and ammunition within the premises.
The alleged arms were meant for Niger Delta militants who had recently threatened to resume attacks on oil facilities and installations. After the gruesome search that lasted over two hours, nothing incriminating was found in and around the premises.
Expectedly, there were concerns regarding who authorized the search and the real motive for it. But the Inspector General of Police, IGP Idris Abubakar denied knowledge of the search. Apparently to demonstrate this, he asked for the arrest and detention of the policemen who conducted the search as well as their informant.
The police authorities went further to parade the informant before the media to disabuse the minds of the public that there were hidden motives behind the search. This was apparently in reaction to raging views that the aim was to silence a critical opposition figure to the government. Clark has been at the apex leadership of ethnic nationalities stridently agitating for an equitable federal order.
Clark is also of the opinion that the search was directly connected with his views which the authorities may not have found palatable and vowed that neither the search nor intimidation will stop him from speaking up on burning national issues. He raised sentiments when he said the humiliating search was because of where he comes from querying if elder statesmen of his age from the north could be subjected to such under the circumstance.
Apparently because of the bungle which the search turned out to be, the police high command raised a high powered team to apologize to Clark. The parade of the alleged informant, one Ismail Yakubu, an indigene of the federal capital territory was also to demonstrate that the claim of the police that it was acting on information was not a ruse. The action of the police became compelling given their reference in their first statement to the vitality of information to crime detection and prevention.
Since they relied heavily on the false information provided by Yakubu, it was only proper to parade him to underscore the point that they had genuine grounds for the search. This purpose appears to have been served by the parade. We have no reason to disbelieve that the man paraded actually provided the fake information that led to the search. It is also not in doubt that all the narratives are from the police.
We are therefore left to believe or not, the account of the entire saga as provided by the police. It is possible insinuations that the search was on account of opposing views held by the elder statesman could hold water. All these are still matters of individual conjecture and perception.
Beyond this however, there are issues in the narrative of the police that should not escape the searing eyes of any careful observer. Idris claimed he had no prior information before the search. We have no reason to disbelieve him. The steps he has taken to reassure Clark of no ill-motive, the arrest of the police officers involved and the parade of the alleged informant fit into confidence building measures. They have gone further to sack three of the policemen while their leader is facing disciplinary action that may culminate in dismissal.
In spite of these, there subsist nagging questions that tend to cast some slur on all we are being made to believe. We require some explanation on the processes leading to the police applying for and obtaining a warrant to search someone’s premises. At what level of authority does the power to authorize such application rest especially in a very serious issue that could compromise national security? The answer to this poser is vital given the claim that the police officers who conducted the controversial search were acting on their own.
This also brings to the fore the level of scrutiny informants’ accounts are subjected to before far-reaching decisions are taken based on such information. The hollowness evident in instant case underscores the level of incompetence that surrounds the deployment of raw information made available to the police. One would have expected that such information would have been very critically processed and analyzed before action is take on them especially on serious security matters.
Yakubu’s account of the source of his misinformation is not only childish but stupid. He claimed during his parade that a taxi driver told him that a sealed Toyota Hilux was conveying arms and ammunition into Asokoro, Abuja residence of the Niger Delta leader, Chief Clark. This prompted him to alert the IGP’s Special Tactical Force which conducted the search. If that was the information he gave the police and we are now left with the turn of events, then we are in a deep mess.
It betrays the level of incompetence with which some of those entrusted with the security of this country carry out their duties. Little wonder the gruesome experience of our citizens in the hands of some of our security personnel. One would have expected the officers to process the information before action. And if in that process there are issues not clear to them, they have their superior officers to share them with.
In this case, they did not. Neither did they follow subsisting procedure for obtaining a search warrant as we have been made to know by their superiors. Too bad! Even from the account of the informant, it is very clear to even a novice that his so-called information was a mere hearsay, if at all he heard anything from a phoney taxi driver. The story lacked substance. He said a taxi driver told him. A diligent police should have asked for that driver to corroborate the story. Nothing of such happened and they swallowed the concoctions of the so-called informant hook, line and sinker.
Both the informant and those who acted on his misleading story are culpable. It is good the police have queried the senior officer that led the ill-fated operation and arraigned Yakubu for false information. But the police leadership cannot be exculpated from this national embarrassment. If a serious national security issue could be so bungled in this amateurish manner, then a lot of work is left to be done within that institution. It is possible the turn of events is because of Clark’s personality. The situation may have been entirely different if the same fate were to have befallen some other innocuous persons.
But the rising tendency with which vocal opponents of the governments are being accused of criminality associated with arms supply and stockpiling is beginning to strike as a serious cause for worry. If it is not Dino Malaye being accused of supplying arms to criminal suspects, it is the senate president, Bukola Saraki allegedly being implicated by armed robbery suspects. Now, we are confronted with the hoax of Clark stockpiling arms and ammunition for distribution to militants.
These speak volumes and seem to reinforce claims by those at the centre of these allegations that persecution for their political views is at the centre of it all. These views are increasingly gaining currency and have been reinforced by the fiasco that was the raid at Clark’s house. The Nigerian Police should have grown beyond the latest bungle.
