By Malachy Uzendu
I must doff my hat for the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu. He is a man of courage. He has firm grasp of his job description. He understands the body language of his pay masters. He appreciates without any ado that as far as his pay masters are concerned, the South-East geo-political zone is a ‘conquered’ territory and must be thoroughly plundered. Its people must be subjected to second class status in their own country. There should be no mercy at all.
The other time, Adamu reeled out a list of 37 Command Commissioners of Police (CPs), which has only one officer from the South-East found fit and worthy to hold such portfolio. It did not matter to the IGP that there is constitutional guarantee of Federal Character Principle. Why should he bother himself, after all, it’s just in a booklet that is known to have been violated with impunity since 2015. Whether that booklet is the grund-num of the country or not, does not matter. What is important is that his actions can be explained away and nobody from the zone can do anything about it.
IGP Adamu did not allow his blow on the psyche of the people of the South-East to settle, than he openly told them they can do nothing about their complaints. What Adamu did not tell them bluntly is to “go to hell”. He did say so. But, must he use those words? Just last Monday, he did not mince words to tell people from the South-East zone that they should not and indeed, have no right to complain over whatsoever condition they find themselves in the Federation.
At an end-of-year conference with Strategic Police Managers, which took place in Abuja, the IGP said people from the zone have right to complain over the preponderance of police road blocks in the zone. According to him, he authorized those road blocks as a result of the high level of criminality in the zone. He waved off the agitations for a reduction in police road blocks in the zone, especially as they serve no useful purpose except to bring about excruciating road traffic congestion around the axis of such road blocks and also for extortion of motorists.
Adamu felt non-pulsed about the ill-feelings of people from the zone. He said at the conference that that heavy number of road block are necessary because there is alarming level of criminality in the zone. Yet, from media reports of criminality, aside from the North-East geo-political zone, where the Islamist Boko Haram terrotists have held sway for years, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau and Kano states rank highest in the preponderance of crime wave in the country. Recent reports have also shown that the South-South and South-West geo-political zones are beginning to witness more crime rate than the South-East. In fact, the South-East geo-political zone holds the least occurrences of crime in the country. Field reports by our correspondents have shown that even criminal elements who are native to the South-East zone have realized the seemingly national marginalization of their people and so, have decided to take less to criminality, especially armed robbery, kidnapping and other life-threatening crimes. After all, are the more educated people in Nigeria not from the South-East? WAEC, NECO, JAMB and National Common Entrance Examination results have supported this assertion. Yet, personalities from the zone are not found fit and qualified to hold sensitive portfolio in the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The IGP told the Abuja gathering that between January and December 2019, his men arrested 6,531 high profile suspects in the country. According to him, 2,627 were arrested for armed robbery; 1,621 for suspected cult activities; 1,527 over alleged kidnappings, and 758 being kept in custody as murder suspects. “Within the same period, the police, according to him recovered a total of 2,037 firearms of various calibre; 21,870 ammunition, and recovered 1,662 vehicles”. This was in addition to 945 kidnap victims that were rescued in the country. In all these however, he did not provide state-by-state breakdown, nor did he disclose the geo-political zone where those crimes were committed. But insiders have told our reporters that preponderance of those crimes did not occur in the South-East zone.
It has become appropriate to recall what veteran journalist, Chuks Iloegbunam disclosed in his Open Letter to President Buhari, published on this space two days ago. According to Mr. Iloegbunam, recounting his personal experience while travelling from Lagos to Anambra State on November 9, 2019, there were 67 “checkpoints” manned by the Police Mobile Force (PMF) along the 371 kilometer stretch from Sagamu to Asaba. Again on Thursday November 28, 2019, he also counted 64 “checkpoints” along the same route. On November 30, 2019, he said, Chief Tony Onyima, another veteran journalist and former Managing Director of the Sun Newspapers, while travelling, counted 60 checkpoints on the same stretch.
Based on his calculation, there was a “checkpoint” at every 6.28 kilometres of the way, suggesting that the notorious stretch has more “checkpoints” than Hanoi and Saigon combined through all the 20 years of the Vietnam War. He also said that “through a third of the three decades of the Northern Ireland troubles, not on any single day throughout this period did Armagh or Belfast or Downpatrick or Enniskillen or Londonderry or any of the roads connecting these Northern Ireland cities bear one hundredth of the roadblocks on the Sagamu-Asaba expressway”. His findings also revealed strangely that there are less than 20 “checkpoints” on the Asaba-Sagamu side of the same expressway, demonstrating clearly that the multiple roadblocks on the other side are in praise of Corruption!
Iloegbunam said: “Inside Onitsha, the multiplicity of “checkpoints” wears an extortionate hat and blows an ear-tearing whistle. Every day starting from about 3pm, a traffic gridlock is created by bribe-taking soldiers and policemen and women at the Niger Bridgehead. Even the 54-year-old Niger bridge is not spared as it is made to carry dead weight created by those obviously corrupt policemen.
“Not on one occasion in all my journeys on that highway did I find a policeman or a soldier or a Customs officer or an Immigration officer or an officer of the Civil Defence Corps bothering to inspect the underside of a vehicle. Not once did I ever see any of these “checkpoint” champions lift a bonnet to inspect what is under it. All they do is train assault rifles on innocent and hapless Nigerians, intimidate them, scream commands and bark orders upon their unfortunate heads, speak at them rudely and spitefully, and then stretch out their hands to collect bribes. Once money changes hands, the vehicles are waved on”.
I travel very often on the 404 kilometre stretch from the South-East border town of Obollo-Afor in Enugu State to Abuja. Apart from the Obollo-Afor to Otukpa Junction stretch which is less than 30 kilometers, but unfortunately has more than 10 MPF and two Military road blocks, the other stretch from Otukpa Junction up to Ajaokuta (120km), has less than five police road blocks. From Ajaokuta to Lokoja (45km) has three police road blocks, while, Lokoja to Abuja (almost 250km), has six police road blocks and three Military Road Blocks.
It should be noted that the longest stretch between Obollo-Afor and Abuja is in Kogi State, recently know for its extreme political violence and which has housed Boko Haram cells. Nowhere in the South-East has there been any reported Boko Haram cell. Yet, IGP Adamu classified the zone as the most criminal-prone zone.
As Mr. Iloegbunam rightly asked: “There are hardly any reported cases of terrorism in the southern half of Nigeria (especially the South-East zone). Why, then, should each of the three geopolitical zones that make up the south of the country have 200 times more roadblocks than the North East geopolitical zone that is the theatre of Boko Haram terrorism?
While it has become urgent for IGP Adamu to retract his position on the road blocks, the is urgent need for the South-East Governors Forum, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and other well-meaning groups in the zone to try and work on the negative tango placed the zone by the IGP. It is unfair to tag the zone negatively and the IGP must understand that such a tag is definitely unfair and most unfortunate, especially coming from a man occupying such an exalted office.
