How Sit-Tightism and IGP Egbetokun’s Incompetence is Brewing Mutiny in the Police Force

By Ebiowei Dickson

Recent developments across the country have shown that the Nigeria Police Force has never had it so bad like it’s currently having since it was established many years ago.

This institution which was established 25 years after the formation of the London Metropolitan Police was established to protect the lives and properties of Nigerians but recent happenings at the Louis Edet House have shown that the force is still living in past glories despite the efforts of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to protect the lives and properties of Nigerians.

There is no single day that passes by without the incidence of one crime or the other been reported in the news media; if it’s not the case of high profile kidnapping, it would be crime of taking life or destruction of properties.

It was because of President Tinubu’s determination to stop the high rate of crimes and win the war against insecurity that made him to think out of the box by appointing a retired police officer, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as his National Security Adviser (NSA) which was a clear departure from the old tradition of appointing retired army officers as NSA.

Mr. President took the decision because he knew that the army was not good in intelligence gathering but the police is the agency saddled with such responsibility. And since the main work of the NSA is to gather intelligence and coordinate all the security agencies into achieving desired results of protecting lives and properties, he gave that opportunity to the retired police officer who has been doing well.

However, instead of mounting solid internal security architectures to protect the lives of Nigerians, the Nigeria Police Force under Mr. Kayode Egbetokun abandoned the tasks of protecting lives and properties for the pursuit of irrelevance like tenure extension and the third party insurance.

As a result of that, this great institution with visible presence in all the 774 local governments areas and  over 5000 police divisions across the federation is still bogged down by the miasma of incompetence and avaricious desire to sit-tight in office against the constitutional frameworks and provisions.

The civil service rule is that upon the clocking of 60 years of age or 35 years of service, the  next action is to retire from the service but it’s not so with Mr. Egbetokun who wants to destroy the institution that made him who he is today simply because he wants to stay in office at all cost.

Like the law of ‘Cause and Effects’, his preference for regime security over national security is brewing mutiny in the force as most officers no longer take orders from him because according to a source, most of them have vowed to defend the Constitution of the country.

According to reports the following officers—Idowu Owohunwa, Simon Lough (SAN), Benneth Igweh, Aina Emmanuel, Salama Wakili Abdul, and Adepoju Olugbenga—have refused to retire, insisting that Egbetokun, who has also exceeded his official retirement age, must exit simultaneously.

On quote, they are insisting that if he must retire them, he must also retire himself, as he has also surpassed the retirement limit but remains in office due to the intervention of the President and the National Assembly,” a police source disclosed.

They also said that every action taken by Egbetokun since last September 4, his official retirement date, is illegal, including, but not limited to, the issuance of retirement letters to them, which they have refused to honour.”

And with his obvious refusal to hid the advice of the Police Service Commission to bow out of service since his retirement date was last year, only God knows what will be the fate of the country because when elephants fights, only the grass which is Nigerians will suffer from that.

When the police is not coordinated to provide security services for Nigerians, I wonder how the force can resist any inducement for regime change from politicians who wants power at all costs.

Instead of allowing Mr. Egbetokun to create the impression that there is a constitutional crisis in the force, the President should do the needful to save this great institution from shame and any unforseen circumstances because having a police force with divided loyalty is not good for the survival of any democratic government.

Mr. Ebiowei Dickson writes from Yenagoa