From Accidental Discharge to Accidental Operations
In the past three weeks, we have been discussing the Charley-Boy republic where everything is possible. One of the symptoms of this queer republic is that people are no longer shocked or scandalized because, before the ink with which one bizarre incident is reported dries up, another, higher-order bizarre thing will happen. That was why Nigerians did not express shock and surprise when gentleman Ibe Kachikwu, Buhari’s Deputy in the Ministry of Petroleum (many have forgotten that PMB is the honourable Minister of Petroleum, who consequently reports to himself) told the whole world that a contract for $25bn was signed, sealed and delivered by one young man called Kanti Bello, without reference to him( Kachikwu). Yes, I mean twenty five billion US dollars. At times, I don’t actually blame Nigerians for not reacting because in the above case, before Nigerians could recover from their daze, the executive whistle blower had started speaking in tongues! And that was where the matter ended; it became a Daura-APC family affair!(They learnt this family affair from PDP but they have even surpassed their teachers).
In the past years, Nigerians have been used to series of accidental discharge by the police and other security forces. Very few of these discharges are really accidental and as shown in the case of APO 6, most of them are deliberate actions. Okada drivers, bust conductors and other ordinary civilians have been shot by police and other people armed with our money for failure to respond favourably to the forcible demand for settlement on the roadside. As the Amnesty International reported in 2009 in its 64-page report Killing at will: Extrajudicial and other unlawful killings in Nigeria, the Nigerian Police Force( or farce) is responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances every year and majority of these cases go un uninvestigated and unpunished and that is probably why such accidents and incidents continue to happen. Unfortunately, there is no certified report of these cases. But it is not a Nigeria only affair. In a 2017 report for CONCEALEDCARRY, Jacob Paulson presented a comprehensive documentation of 300 cases of negligent discharges in the US, in a research that lasted two years, 2014-2016
However the reality of the case is that we have moved from accidental or negligent discharge by our security forces to accidental security operations. An accidental operation is a new concept, which I have just discovered and developed. It is a security operation which is illegal, unauthorised or executed mistakenly/accidentally. It also includes operations carried out in daylight by identifiable policemen( not unknown policemen), which the police authorities denied being involved in. It is a simple and unimaginable concept with grave implications: police or security forces carrying out security operations mistakenly.
In July this year, the Nigerian Police Force barricaded the residences of Senators Saraki & Ekwerenmadu. In this online real-time era, everybody all over the world saw the operations, live. But the Jimoh Moshood, the rudest and most audacious police spokesperson in my lifetime categorically stated that ‘there was no authorised deployment of Police personnel to besiege the residence of the Senate President or his deputy’ and that “The police personnel seen in pictures in the media were those in the convoy of the Senate President and others attached to him," . In effect, Saraki barricaded himself and called the whole world to witness same! A few weeks later, masked operatives of the Department of State Services barricaded the gate to the National Assembly complex, shutting out lawmakers and the staffers. We were all witnesses. This action was also declared anauthorised and in one of the rare acts of responsiveness, the DG of DSS, the very powerful Daura was asked to go and cool his hills in the DSS cell, where he had kept people like Dasuki and Jones Abirri!
And just before the dust could settle, some overzealous policemen raided the house of the 91 year old Edwin Clark in search of whatever! And for the first time, Jimoh Moshood who literally told Governor Ortom to go to hell and who all along behaved as if he had everything wrapped up, went to beg! He also declared that the IGP was not aware and did not authorize the operation. Probably the IGP was so busy searching for IPOB members, perfecting the implication of Saraki in the Offa robbery and drafting charges against Melaye for attempted suicide, that he does not know who does what. Surprisingly in this case, the police has been hyperactive. They had dismissed the junior operatives involved, “for the unauthorised, illegal and unprofessional misconduct in the search of the residence of Chief Edwin Clark in Asokoro, Abuja.”The fake whistle blower has also been paraded (and tomorrow, they expect me to give them a lead) and the IGP Special Tactical Squad (directly under the IGP as the name implies), which was implicated in the Clark debacle, has also been disbanded. Of course, I believe that this disastrous accidental operation was in a quest for the 5% whistle blowing largesse and it shows the shallowness of our intelligence gathering, management and response. It also belies common sense that a squad under the IGP went on an operation without any authorization!
Anyway, one day the Police will accidentally block the third mainland bridge, mistakenly close the Abuja Airport and accidentally set the Onitsha main market on fire in search of IPOB members. Well…all is well
Other Matters
On 7/7/18, the Premium Times ‘authoritatively’ reported that our Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun did not participate in the mandatory National Service, which therefore made it illegal for her to be in the Nigerian public service. More than two months later, precisely on 10/9/18, the Presidency( who or what is this presidency?) informed Nigerians, through Garba Shehu, that the matter was under investigation! That is, in the past two months, the NYSC has not been able to ascertain whether it issued an Exemption Certificate to the young lady or not, though it was able to readily inform us that she applied for the exemption certificate. Well, this further validates Senator Sanni’s Deodorant-Pesticide hypothesis and is a quintessence of what can happen in a typical Charley-Boy Republic
Ik Muo, PhD. writes from Department of Business administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye 08033026625; [email protected] [email protected]