DO Nigerians still hold the contentious title of the world’s happiest people?
I am not sure now, just as I wasn’t a few years ago when some researchers, apparently aware of our rare passion for vacuous recognitions, garlanded us with that disputable honour. It is, however, sure that we are a fastidious lot. We are hard to please as we find fault in any venture, no matter the nobility of its intentions and the dexterity of its delivery.
If you doubt this assertion, ask police chief Ibrahim Kpotun Idris. Shortly after he was named the acting Inspector- General in June, Idris moved fast to consolidate his grip on the seat.
Not a man of great eloquence, the police chief is no doubt a man of action. In his first major press conference, the former traffic officer accused his predecessor, Solomon Arase, of going away with a fleet of 24 vehicles, among them two exotic BMW 7 Series, one of which is bullet proof. Idris lamented that he was left with an old car.
Arase defended his integrity, saying he never went away with 24 cars as alleged by his successor. “What am I going to do with 24 cars? Do I want to open a car shop?” Arase asked angrily. He described the allegation as malicious and advised his successor to face the security situation in the land “rather than engage in media propaganda”.
Poor Idris. He cut a pitiful picture of a guard hurled on harm’s way after his arms had been stolen while he was asleep. Not one to be easily deterred from pursuing any cause he considers noble and elevating, he refused to allow such a matter of national importance go away like a village market row between two overfed women. He raised a Special Investigation Panel (SIP) to probe the number of cars the police had bought in the last three years and who got them.
So bad was the situation that Idris took his plight to the court of public opinion. He said: “The last time I followed the President with it he was asking me, ‘what are you doing with this old car’ because if you see the headlight, the thing has changed colour, which means they parked it and rains and everything had fallen on it, but the new ones that were bought, he (Arase) went with all of them; they are part of the 24.”
Unknown to the IG, he had stirred up a hornet’s nest. Instead of sympathising with him and displaying the deep empathy such a grave situation deserves, those inconsiderate and implacable fellows who will never see anything good in any public official descended on him. What does he need a big car for? Does he need a BMW to pursue criminals? Should that be his first headache? What will he do if Arase decides not to surrender the cars? Was he appointed to ride cars?
They were unsparing and scurrilous in their upbraiding of the police chief. It was as if he had committed murder, one of those despicable crimes he was hired to fight. Trust Idris, who had spent 17 years in the elite Mobile Force, the one referred to dreadfully as “Kill and go” on account of its extrajudicial actions. He took it all on the chin.
But then he had become a marked police chief. Every step he took became a subject of unbridled attacks by those fellows, the armchair critics who hide under various shadowy nomenclatures, such as public affairs analyst, public commentator, security expert and other funny titles.
Apparently reacting to the outcry over extrajudicial killings, Idris threatened to order psychiatric tests for his men. The rumour mongers, who never weighed the merit of the Acting IG’s logic – that no sane policeman will fire at innocent citizens – descended on him.
They screamed: Is that the problem? When will this man get serious and know that policing is serious business and not a plate of salad washed down with a bottle of French wine? Will he lead the way? Shouldn’t such tests have been administered at the point of entry? Who will pay for the tests?
Even some of those to be tested were said to have been deriding the idea, whispering: na test we go chop?
Obviously mindful of being seen as impassive to reason, Idris is yet to carry out his threat – despite the risk of being scorned by an ever fickle public as a weak police chief who lacks the courage to implement his plans.
Not done with hurling invectives at the IG, those unrepentant traducers of all patriotic public servants started to blame him for the negligible few policemen who guard civilians, especially our prized politicians and businessmen who, according to the critics, have turned the officers to errand boys. They claim that policemen still carry handbags for the wives and concubines of the rich and powerful. Is that true? Even if it is, how many do?
Besides, they insist, as usual without any iron-clad proof, that checkpoints remain with us despite the fact that they had been banned a long time ago. Haba. Let us be fair. Did Idris order the return of checkpoints? Why should he carry the can for that? Can any police chief be so ubiquitous as to see everything going on the land?
Of all the allegations against the police chief, none has been as vociferous as those concerning the fellow who named his dog Buhari. The story is a familiar one. A trader, Joachim Iroko (no relation of the one who governs Ondo) Chinakwe, 40, named his dog Buhari, inscribed the name on the animal and walked it in an area with a large concentration of people of an ethnic group. The police grabbed him and threw him into detention.
He had barely spent three days when a huge outcry broke out from the human rights community and ordinary Nigerians whose business is to mind other people’s business. The police would not be distracted by the hullaballoo. They did a thorough investigation of this all-important and delicate case.
They charged Citizen Chinakwe with conduct likely to cause a breach of peace. For ease of reference, the charge: “That you, Joachim Iroko, aka Joe, and others still at large,on Saturday August 13, 2016, at about 5.30pm at the Ketere area, Sango in the Ota Magisterial District did conduct yourselves in a manner likely to cause breach of the peace, by writing a name, Buhari, on a dog and parading same in the Hausa section of Ketere Market, Sango, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 249 (d) of the Criminal Law of Ogun State, Nigeria, 2016.”
Chief Magistrate B.J. Ojikutu admitted Chinakwe to bail in the sum of N50,000, which took his humble family a tortuous while to raise.
Instead of praising the unusually speedy investigation of this seditious matter, the so-called critics jumped onto the train of the huge group of emergency animal rights activists that had sprouted like wild mushrooms in the wake of the matter. They lashed onto it to pound our Acting IG and his men. Besides, they tried to surreptitiously drag President Muhammadu Buhari into the fray by claiming that his was the Buhari inscribed on Chinakwe’s dog. Whatever happened to the respect we accord our leaders and their offices.
Where are Chinakwe’s accomplices? Isn’t naming a pet an inalienable right of its owner? Are there limits to where a dog or any pet can be paraded? Where is the dog, the star exhibit in this case?
Another police chief would have ordered Chinakwe flown to Abuja, hustled on by an army of armed guards to prevent his accomplices – they are still at large, you know – from storming the airport to free him. In Abuja, he would have been bundled before a judge of controversial standing who would have banged his head with impossible bail terms, including a surety who must be a director at the Presidency and who must own property in Asokoro. The court, needless to say, would have sat under the tightest security our police chiefs could muster– mounted guards, Bomb Disposal Unit, Marine Police, Dog Unit and all.
Not Idris’ humane police. Chinakwe was simply brought before a discretionary magistrate who gave him bail on liberal terms. The treasonable tension and canine conducts generated by the big dog issue died almost immediately. But, no thanks to the much discredited analysts, the police have got no kudos.
Why are our people so difficult to please?
