AN indisputable fact from the outset: any attack on the IGP is collateral damage. I will elucidate presently. It still amazes me how the spuriously laughable and horrendous allegations against the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Kpotun Idris (Zanna Nupe) by a former police officer, Senator Hamman Misau, assumed a larger-than-life complexion. Such unsubstantiated narrative of delinquent fables and old wives’ asininities should have been dismissed and ignored outright for sheer lack of credibility!
I have always insisted that the viral juvenilities on the social media and other new technological platforms should be treated with caution, if not utter contempt, on grounds of their abuse, vituperation and scurrility. Unfortunately, large sections of the community still elevate such imbecilities to inexplicable relevance and subjects of dysfunctional conversation. Even conventional (traditional) channels of communication have been so brazenly compromised and diminished that their contents are now taken with a pinch (shovel!) of salt because of their inherent idiocies.
Recently, baseless allegations against the country’s topmost cop assumed inflammable dimensions and almost became a matter for upper legislative engagement. I will not rehash the puerile allegations here, but the prefatory fact that must be underscored at this point is that the fairy-tale charges levelled at the IGP bordered on deviancy. Idris, a man fervent in service since his appointment as IGP, cannot be mud-slung out of office by nondescript attackers bent on haranguing him out of his laudatory pursuit of police re-engineering, redemption and glorious reformation of the institution.
This holier-than-thou attitudinal disposition that smacks of self-righteousness is a typical moral code of our bohemianism and an integral part of our queer humanistic existentialism. Even for purposes of argument and hypothesis, how many men in the world do not indulge in concupiscence that one harebrained mite would now have the papal temerity and self-immolating credentials to clownishly point the finger at another man? The pot cannot call the kettle black.
Stretching the debate further, who is that Nigerian—in private or public life—who does not allow bovine intelligence, extraneous considerations like religion, ethnicity, gender, all manner of networks (old boys/girls’ associations, occupational pedigree, marital background, all sorts of beneficence) to becloud their judgmental inclinations? Even in churches these days, pastors lobby for “choice” postings! How much less the public service? The truth of the matter is that our moral etiquette and compass have so been vitiated in all spheres of our life that ethical conduct is now an anathema.
This systemic breakdown in our behavioural template is not justificatory for any degeneration in our interpersonal relationships wherever we find ourselves either as superiors or subordinates. Whether as saints or villains, we must be conscious of this underpinning characterization of our collectivity. Demonizing one of us for political profit or other sinister considerations is like cutting our nose to spite our face. This, again, as I pointed out earlier on, is predicated on assumptive ethos. In reality and as the Bible incontrovertibly asserts, we have all sinned and come short of God’s glory. Every other thing is hinged on restitution and eschatological architecture for a Christ-like life.
I can reasonably and responsibly vouch for IGP Idris superlatively on grounds of the sterling character of most Nupe-speaking people that I know. He cannot be among the exception.
Unlike most parts of the country, the average Nupe person is highly responsible, self-respecting, peace-loving and committed to the transformation of this polity having produced distinguished and unblemished public servants currently and in the past. One thing I learned from Gab before his untimely translation that still pains me was that they detested anything that could attract public odium to their individual and collective personalities, let alone Nupe land. Communality and (individual) good name—above anything else—mean incalculably so much to the average person from this sub-national axis. Profoundly, they are good-natured people who place optimal premium on truth.
The unprecedented and provocative attacks on the IGP beginning from Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, a rash of uncouth and vicious groups to the latest senatorial distraction are propagandistic pellets aimed at President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration using the IGP as one of the critical channels to undermine national leadership and security for multifarious reasons that border on selfishness, political mileage and unwarranted visibility and undeserved recognition. Before now, how many Nigerians knew Misau or have ever heard his name or legislative input? The Wike descent on the IGP is even understandable because of the imperativeness of politico-survivalist tendencies at that point. As for the senatorial fronting and posturing, I cannot comprehend the dastardly project and the brains behind it.
Apparently because the IGP insists on professionally discharging his onerous duties, some of his “victims” (that is those affected by his stringency and bursting of endemic corruption) believe, rather erroneously, that the only way to confront the “police bully” (in their irredeemable misperception) is to demonize, calumniate and humiliate him as much as possible. Instead of achieving this ultimate fiasco, the oppositional baboons have unwittingly made IGP Idris possibly the most popular number one cop the country has ever had since the revalidation of democracy in Nigeria. One thing the hypercritics of IGP Idris easily forget is that the office he occupies is a sensitive function of career distinction, antecedents, candour, holistic profundity of merit and, pre-eminently, personal character. Such appointments are not for charlatans or political stooges that have no known (verifiable) profile robustness. With this kind of background and knowledge, I would expect detractors of the occupant of that exalted office—be it IGP Idris or any other person for that matter—to be cautious and responsible in misguidedly vilifying a most likely innocent person no matter the fleeting motivation or anticipatory recompense that evaporates, ultimately! For those who may not know, the Police Service Commission (PSC) shortlists three names of eminently qualified most senior police officers from a pool of copious eligible officers after forensic examination of professional records and reputational pedigree for presidential selection and appointment. It is not a tea party for small fries and tiny tots.
No police boss will carry out his duties the way and manner IGP Idris has been doing and achieving results without rustling the feathers of brats who subscribe and are used to the status quo. In any disruption of the establishment, there are bound to be papooses who will fight back even if it is only mudslinging and tomfooling. Corruption and its obstreperous bambinos are devilishly monstrous and will venomously resist any official interjection, intervention or intrusion (in their own stupidity).
No bunkum with myopic interests or moronic groups of people with vested ambitions can derail the IGP from the restoration he is domesticating in the police. Not even political cherubs who fail to compromise him for unmerited electoral success can bad-name and crucify him. Clear conscience, constitutionalism, professionalism, honesty, courage, justice, equity and fairness, I understand from my literature review, are the crucible nuggets that feverishly and resolutely drive this IGP.
I also know that striplings trying to use the IGP as a decoy to descend on diligent President Buhari is just pouring water in a basket! Such circuitous dissipation of energy and time, from all indications, will end as irredeemable fiascos. By the way, have you noticed the unprecedented drop in the cases of criminalities in the country since the emergence of IGP Idris? Before his appointment, it was as if the nation had been overrun by evil men of multifarious shades: bandits, kidnappers, insurgents, scammers, cattle rustlers, domestic terrorists, cross-border criminals and inter-communal war-mongers.
Sonnies who seek justice must come with clear hands. You cannot as a nipper with a specious past and from the “Chamber of Commotion” peopled by mostly questionable characters attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting Nigerians or the gullible public by yarning cock-and-bull stories.
The IGP should not be responding to urchins, cubs, whippersnappers, rockers, skinheads and all sorts of ducklings. Zanna Nupe should ignore such garrulous buffoons who satiate in pub and media loquacity.