You won’t find too many people shedding tears for the immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba. The All Progressives Congress (APC) says under him the police became little more than the enforcement arm of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) used to thwart the people’s will and act in ways that negated its constitutional mandate.
Other reports spoke of jubilation by the rank and file in some areas when news of his removal filtered through. For as long as I can remember, ordinary policemen have celebrated the fall of their bosses for reasons revolving largely round their welfare. I’m unsure in what ways he had offended them.
If Abba was unpopular with the lower rungs of the force, he certainly was no longer flavour of the month in Aso Rock. The tweet announcing his firing was as terse as it was cryptic. It was devoid of even the lamest of courtesies: it was downright disrespectful.
But it was not always this way. The colourless former IG leapt into public consciousness with his high profile role in the storming of the National Assembly when the House of Representatives tried to sit for the first time following the defection of Speaker Aminu Tambuwal to the APC.
The Speaker had riled President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP high command by breaking with the party’s agreed zoning structure to run to lead the House. What made the episode even more galling for the powers-that-be was that the rebel achieved his victory through an unlikely alliance with elements of the APC.
Although Tambuwal and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha would go to Aso Villa and the party hierarchy to beg for forgiveness, he would never be trusted again. Indeed, if Jonathan had been able to muster the numbers the speaker would have been out on his ear long ago.
Over the months as it became obvious that his break with PDP had become permanent the party waited patiently for their quarry to make his move. Even when he formally announced his change of affiliation they still couldn’t oust him. By now the APC through defections had temporarily snatched the majority.
That left Jonathan will only one hand left to play. He got Abba to strip the speaker of his security details. The then IG even took matters a step further. When the media asked for the rationale behind his action he crossed the line between law enforcement and adjudication. Tambuwal, he said, had violated the constitution by crossing party lines – therefore he was no longer Speaker. Aghast, people asked the police chief when he assumed the role of the courts to interpret the constitution.
Whatever the removal of security cover was intended to achieve for the Presidency and ruling party, the effect was the opposite. It exposed the hypocrisy of the force and administration as many other legislators and governors had defected to the PDP without receiving the same treatment.
Tambuwal continued as speaker making his own private security arrangements and using the courts to sustain his position. Abba and his police force, on the other hand, found themselves getting sucked deeper and deeper into the mire of partisan politics. They clearly loved the mud bath as they threw themselves into further controversy with their open embrace of one side during the Osun State governorship election last year.
In the end Abba who had devoted himself and the Nigerian police structure to the advancement of the partisan interests of those who made him was humiliated out of his cherished office by the same hands. No official reasons have been given for his sacking but I am inclined to believe much of the speculations that have been published.
The truth is the Jonathan presidency leaks more than a sieve. Three days before the dismissal was announced The Nation had published an exclusive report on Saturday, April 18 to the effect that Abba was on his way out. Against such a backdrop it would be unreasonable to dismiss what has been reported in the media as untrue.
So what do we know? The former IG was accused of disloyalty because in his final few weeks in office he made postings that positioned the police to do their work more evenly in some critical states. Significantly, he posted Assistant Inspector-General of Police Tunde Ogunsakin to Rivers State only to have his order countermanded by Aso Rock. That dodgy move by a desperate presidency soon found its way into the press.
Abba’s other sin reportedly was his attending the ceremony where President-Elect Muhammadu Buhari was presented with his certificate of return. He was also said to have been at the airport to receive the general.
I am convinced that in doing these things Abba didn’t have a sudden conversion to professionalism. Rather, it was the instinct for self-preservation that kicked in. Had Jonathan prevailed on March 28 would he have moved the officers around in the manner he did? I doubt it.
This was a man who was willing to do what was necessary to please whoever would further his career ends. He gambled – thinking that the moves he made would stand him in good stead with the incoming administration. He lost because he presumed the dying horse was finished – not knowing it had one last devastating kick before expiring. The result was his vengeful sacking by an embittered president.
For all his scheming to right wrongs that the police under him had perpetrated, the former IG would be remembered not for his actions in the last three weeks, but for the infamous police invasion of the National Assembly. Who can forget those graphic images of teargas filling the House chamber or of portly legislators clambering over gates that had been shut by the police? Mr. Abba has clearly secured his accommodation in the halls of infamy.
As for President Jonathan his coldblooded humiliation of his erstwhile police chief reinforces what many have said about him in the past. While he makes every effort to project a humble and amiable mien he’s also capable of the most impetuous acts of vindictiveness. His Public Affairs Adviser, Doyin Okupe once famously compared him to Jesus Christ. But episodes like the Abba sacking expose the president as just another flawed, unforgiving human being.
Those in the know claim that whilst he was late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s deputy he suffered a series of slights at the hands of former Delta State Governor James Ibori and ex-Bayelsa Governor Timipre Sylva. When he providentially became president these two fellows quickly discovered there was a new sheriff in town.
Sylva, especially, was subjected to treatment that confirms the old saying that revenge is a dish best eaten cold. It is said that conscious of the less-than-chummy relationship between him and the new president, some colleague governors took Sylva to beg forgiveness of the president on bended knees. He got the real answer when he was muscled out the state’s PDP gubernatorial primaries with a script that had Abuja’s fingerprints all over it.
There’s no question that Jonathan is still traumatized by the outcome of the elections. Reports say he feels betrayed by a wide array of party men and appointees who either didn’t do enough for the cause or just converted campaign cash to personal use. But we are yet to hear any admission by the candidate of his own mistakes that imperiled his candidacy long before these last few weeks.
Some people always have to blame others for their woes. Amusingly, Jonathan’s supporters who are yet to reconcile themselves to the fact that their man has lost power have been clutching at anything in sight that looks like a win to award their hero. So they have latched onto his concession call to Buhari as the tool for reinventing the man some global statesman.
But one phone call does not a Jimmy Carter make. The PDP crisis was exacerbated by the decision of the “global statesman” to break the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) by backing the minority against the majority. What was statesmanly about the president overseeing the abuse of the military in last year’s Ekiti gubernatorial election leading to what is now known as the Ekitigate scandal?
The Abba sacking shows once again that at the core of Nigeria’s leadership challenge is slotting small men in big offices. Even if the ex-IG had actually been so ‘disloyal’ couldn’t the president have restrained himself knowing he was a lame-duck who would be out of the place in four weeks? What altruism is there in a man in his position making such a high profile appointment knowing that Buhari is likely to name his own security team once he takes over?
Jonathan could have moved on basking in the approbation that followed his concession call to Buhari, but a man would sooner or later be undone by his weaknesses. By succumbing to one last vengeful lunge at his enemies the president now heads into retirement under a stream of negative headlines.
The more I turn over Abba’s list of sins, the more I am left underwhelmed. Jonathan could have let it go and taken his revenge in his memoirs. Nelson Mandela was unjustly jailed for 27 years. He emerged to forgive his erstwhile tormenters, save his nation from racial conflagration and became a global symbol of the power of forgiveness. And he was not even a religious leader! He was a giant.
Our leaders are slow to forgive and proudly celebrate their capacity to hold long grudges over small matters. They are quick to exact revenge at the first opportunity. Little wonder they are pygmies!
