Last Sunday, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Asokoro Police Station, Abuja, CSP Nnanna Amah, disrupted a meeting of the G-7 governors holding at the Kano State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja. He claimed to be acting under instruction. The incensed governors, one of whom was so enraged he could have tackled the impudent police officer had he not been gently restrained by a fellow governor, resisted the attempt and dared the invading policemen to arrest them. The policemen backed down. The embarrassed governors described the police invasion as impunity. I do not think so; we passed the stage of impunity months ago when the public and the National Assembly failed to take firm and clear action to leash the insubordinate and rampaging policemen of Rivers State led by the obstreperous Mbu Joseph Mbu.
Though the House of Representatives will be inviting the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar, to explain who instructed Mr Amah to disrupt the governors’ meeting, I doubt whether any serious effort will be made to arrest Nigeria’s slow but sure drift towards fascism. However, it will be interesting to find out who sent Mr Amah and why. Until the IGP explains himself, it is at least evident that the DPO invaded the meeting of the G-7 governors last Sunday, behaved most unpleasantly and irresponsibly, tarried at the venue for much longer than propriety demanded, and gave the impression, as Mr Mbu still does in Rivers State, that Nigeria is not under constitutional rule but is a police state.
The Abuja invasion is a logical progression from the anomy being engendered in Rivers State by the police. If the Amah-led invasion is not made the last of its type, it will continue and even become worse. For all his insolence, Mr Mbu has either deliberately or inadvertently avoided direct contact with the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, not to talk of giving him unlawful orders, as Mr Amah tried to give the five governors in Abuja when he ordered them to disperse. Whether the National Assembly has enough understanding and courage to put effective restraints on the police, and by implication the presidency, is hard to say. But if they don’t, the blame for whatever happens to Nigerian democracy will fall squarely at their feet. The executive couldn’t be blamed, for Nigerians are accustomed to their malfeasances and constitutional infractions, not to talk of their limited perspectives on democracy, rule of law and very poor vision of what kind of country Nigeria should be.
The judiciary could also not be blamed, for in their limited way, and notwithstanding their sometimes curious judgements on political disagreements, sober and courageous judges now and again rise up to the challenge of dispensing justice without fear or favour. On the other hand, the legislature has indescribably tremendous powers, both at the state and national levels, that it is unimaginable they have failed to use them. Instead, and perhaps for business or other reasons, legislators at all levels prefer to ingratiate themselves with the executive. If the police have not apologised for their open indiscretion in Rivers, it is unlikely they will apologise in the case of the Abuja invasion. But, if against all expectations they do, it will be insincere and offer no guarantees that future violations of the constitution would not occur. The reasons are twofold.
First is that, increasingly, the police are displaying less and less character than their predecessors who enforced the law in the early decades after independence, and the bond and trust that existed between the people and their police have all but been denuded by years of enthusiastic subversion of both the dignity of the people they are paid to protect and the constitution they swore to defend. Mr Mbu, for instance, could not claim to misunderstand the provisions of the constitution or the demands and application of common sense. His problem is more likely to be a damning want of character than anything else. Were he inclined to disobey unlawful orders, for which at any rate he holds no private or public affection, he knew exactly what the punishment would be. It is of course impossible that the want of character, which did not tempt him to stand up against unlawful orders, could by some miracle become strength of character enabling him to withstand the vagaries of unemployment to which he was certain to be sentenced by his superiors whose orders he had questioned.
However, what compounds Mr Mbu’s eager insubordination and want of mental and moral fortitude is not simply the humiliation of executing unlawful orders, at least for someone who claims to be a graduate of political science from a prestigious university. His dilemma, if indeed it can be so described, is the men by whom the distasteful orders come to him. For it is abundantly clear that even though his superiors in the police force also suffer a despairing lack of character, and could not stand up to the machinations of presidency forces, Mr Mbu appears compelled to carry out orders emanating from lesser men hovering around the corridors of power anxious to please President Goodluck Jonathan. Neither the top hierarchy of the police nor minions like Mr Mbu and Mr Amah would attempt to question what direction the unlawful orders were coming from nor for what purpose they were meant.
The second reason is the president himself, a man who has proved infinitely less circumspect about the law or the constitution than his predecessors, whether the boisterously ineffective but still somewhat sensible Olusegun Obasanjo, or the sedate but obviously more sensible and sober Umaru Yar’Adua. Dr Jonathan is a man given to much pontification on the rule of law, democracy, constitutionalism and peaceful co-existence. But no one is as adept as he is at knocking tribal heads against one another, subverting the rule of law, and propounding constitutional rule only when it glorifies and glamorises presidential office.
To a more circumspect president, the defiance of Mr Mbu in Rivers will be viewed with the considerable alarm any sensible democrat and convinced federalist would feel at so open and shocking a display of disobedience never before seen in these parts, not under the military, and not even under the iconoclast, Chief Obasanjo, who loved to humiliate his opponents. A reflective president would be worried that instigating Mr Mbu against a governor, or Mr Amah against five governors at a time, could lead to a bitter exchange between those saddled with protecting the governors and the invading policemen. Does the president not foresee this danger? And in future, could security aides of governors not be fooled by assassins dressed in police or military uniforms purporting to carry out orders from above, as indeed is already happening at checkpoints and highways?
My suspicion is that Dr Jonathan has pretended not to appreciate the dangers involved in these matters because of two reasons. One, the wholesale subversion of his enemies favours him, and he might have been advised to use strong-arm tactics if he hoped to retain his seat in 2015; and two, simply because he sadly has no role model either in the Nigerian presidency or elsewhere in the world to look up to. Had the Nigerian presidency been occupied at one time or the other by great statesmen like say, No 10 Downing Street and the American White House were, the photographs of such illustrious predecessors adorning the walls of the exalted office would peer down on an offending president with the withering censoriousness their great acts in times of trouble would tantamount to.
What great and noble deeds, it may be asked, was Chief Obasanjo noted for, or any of his predecessors? What inspiring vision of country or even leadership could be attributed to any of the gentlemen who ruled Nigeria? And as a country, against what standard do we judge our rulers? Is it against Gowon’s dishonoured promise to hand over the reins of power; or against Babangida’s interminable political and economic experimentations; or against Abacha’s larcenous and hedonistic rule; or against Ironsi’s indefensible naivety, among others? Dr Jonathan has no role model and no example to look up to. Unwilling to create a legacy worthy of emulation, he has both enacted and permitted series of subversive activities against democracy and the Nigerian constitution he swore to protect and defend. He has created a police state in which no one is sure who is governor anymore. And he has surreptitiously begun laying the foundations for fascism from which it would be difficult to extricate the country if a halt is not put to it now, if the stupefied National Assembly would not eschew sentiments to build a solid rampart in defence of our hard-won freedoms.
