Widespread Looting: Huriwa Blames Igp, Demands His Dismissal If:

"The mere fact that from all across the Country, desperate citizens were seen invading public Warehouses and massively looting storages perceived to be palliatives that were meant for the poor during the lockdown that characterized the first wave of the global pandemic of COVID-19 and the fact that the men and officers of the Nigerian Police Force were nowhere near those strategic public facilities to forestall the security breaches and the inexplicable withdrawal of police security details from very Important Persons all across the Country as directed by the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu goes to show one of the two things or both- that Nigeria Police Force is indeed dysfunctional and grossly incapacitated by corruption and professional indiscipline and secondly, that the Nigerian Police Force deliberately withdrew the services of providing security of lives and properties of Nigerians which is the statutory mandate of the Nigerian Police Force as part of the larger conspiracy by the Federal government of President Muhammadu Buhari to ridicule the #ENDSARS PROTESTS and to paint the protesters graphically before the International Community as essentially made up of hoodlums and lawless thugs and therefore to perfectly provide the precondition for the Federal government not to effectively carry out the stated comprehensive reforms of the policing institution in the Country and to stop the use of torture and extrajudicial killings as policing tactics which generated the nationwide protests in the first instance".

With the above summation, the Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has blamed the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu for his contradictory statements and directives to the Nigerian Police soon after the October 20th 2020 LEKKI Toll Gates Lagos violent attacks by a combined team of armed police and Nigerian Army just as the Rights group said there is evidence of state collusion in the absence of any sort of effective and efficient policing which gave way to a general breakdown of Law and order all around the Country marked by massive invasions of Warehouses by hungry and desperate Nigerians to loot storages of foodstuffs designated as COVID- 19 PALLIATIVES donated by the Organized Private Sector(OPS) to States across the Country.

Also, the Rights group said the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu should be sacked forthwith for failing to prevent Nigerians from massively invading public and private properties in CALABAR Cross Rivers State, Lagos State, Abia State, Imo State, Anambra State, Kaduna State, Near a State, Edo State, Plateau State, Adamawa State to steal, destroy and burn down assets of certain politically exposed individuals including some who are just successful private entrepreneurs like Senator Ndoma Egba a Senior Advocate of Nigeria whose mansion in CALABAR was invaded, looted and set alight by hoodlums who were not armed but who succeeded only because the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu failed to command and control the operatives of the NIGERIA Police to carry out their job even as the earlier order made by the IGP withdrawing Police protection from VIPs was the tonic needed by these youthful hoodlums to loot and destroy public and private assets of Nigeria and Nigerians.

HURIWA said the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu has no legal reason to remain in office with the massive scale of attacks of public and private properties carried out by hoodlums who did not have to worry about the police since the police operatives were no where near the crime scenes.

HURIWA stated that the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu violated several sections of the Constitution by his gross dereliction of duty just as the Rights group said the following provisions of the Constitution were violated bybthe IGP: "Section 214. Establishment Of Nigeria Police Force; 1) There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.

2) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution
(a) the Nigeria Police Force shall be organised and administered in accordance with such provisions as may be prescribed by an act of the National Assembly;

(b) the members of the Nigeria Police shall have such powers and duties as maybe conferred upon them by law;

(c) the National Assembly may make provisions for branches of the Nigeria Police Force forming part of the armed forces of the Federation or for the protection of harbours, waterways, railways and air fields. Section 215. Appointment Of Inspector-General And Control Of Nigeria Police Force; 1) There shall be –

(a) an Inspector-General of Police who, subject to section 216(2) of this Constitution shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving members of the Nigeria Police Force;

(b) a Commissioner of Police for each state of the Federation who shall be appointed by the Police Service Commission.

2) The Nigeria Police Force shall be under the command of the Inspector-General of Police and contingents of the Nigeria Police Force stationed in a state shall, subject to the authority of the Inspector-General of Police, be under the command of the Commissioner of Police of that state.

(3) The President or such other Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorise in that behalf may give to the Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary, and the Inspector-General of Police shall comply with those direction or cause them to be compiled with.

4) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Governor of a state or such Commissioner of the Government state as he may authorise in that behalf, may give to the Commissioner of Police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the state as he may consider necessary, and the Commissioner of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with: Provided that before carrying out any such directions under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the Commissioner of Police may request that the matter be referred to the President or such minister of the Government of the Federation as may be authorised in that behalf by the President for his directions.

5) The question whether any, and if so what, directions have been given under this section shall not be inquired into in any court and Section 216. Delegation Of Powers To The Inspector-General And The Police; 1) Subject to the provisions of this constitution, the Nigeria Police Council may, with the approval of the President and subject to such conditions as it may think fit, delegate any of the powers conferred upon it by this Constitution to any of its members or to the Inspector-General of Police or any other member of the Nigeria Police Force."

"We are miffed and shocked that the Nigerian Police Force through the IGP was not appropriately directed to act within the bounds of the law to stop the breakdown of Law and order all around the Country.

Rather amidst the cacophony of looting of public and private properties, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, ordered the withdrawal of all police personnel attached to all VIPs across the nation with immediate effect.This order for withdrawal was contained in a Wireless Message sent virtually to Zonal AIGs and Command CPs with signal number DTO 210900/19/2020.The signal was copied to all Police formations in Lagos, Benin, Enugu, Makurdi, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Oshogbo, Sokoto, Umuahia, Abeokuta, Akure, Awka, Ibadan, Calabar, Kano, Yola, Asaba and Ebonyi, with the IGP warning that any Commander who violates this order will face the consequences.

However, Adamu said those attached to government houses, the Senate President and the Speaker House of Representatives, should not be withdrawn.The signal, which was signed by the AIG POL, Protect, Force Headquarters, Abuja, reads in part: “Any protect personnel found escorting or guarding any VIP with or without a firearm is deemed to be deployed by the commander and the commander will be sanctioned.”It also directed that “all withdrawn protection personnel are to report to COMPOL commands.”

HURIWA has condemned this show of gross incompetence and/or compromise by the Inspector General of Police which can be gleaned from the order he gave for the withdrawal of police services at a critical time in the trajectory of Nigeria and at a time Mobs were invading public and private properties and then when these massive scale of attacks of public and private properties had successfully been carried out then the Inspector General of Police gave another order for AIGs, CPs, others to reclaim public space, restore normalcy just as HURIWA said the National Assembly should investigate these contradictory orders from the police Chief just as the President if he is patriotic should sack the police IGP for these actions that led to the total breakdown of Law and order all around the Country.

"The same Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, who had ordered the withdrawal of police services to very important Nigerians which largely motivated mobs and hoodlums to invade facilities owned by these individuals and the states of the Federation to loot and destroy these same Properties and after the destructions have successfully been completed only for the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu to give order for his officers to begin what he calls immediate mobilisation of all police operational assets and resources to bring an end to the wanton violence, killings, looting and destruction of public and private property, to reclaim the public space from hoodlums masquerading as protesters in some parts of the country."

HURIWA is therefore calling for the immediate sack of the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu who has failed to provide effective leadership skills that would have prevented the total collapse of law and order in Nigeria including the communal conflict in Fagba Lagos state between HAUSA and YORUBA in which scores were killed and properties destroyed without the police intervening to bring these henious acts to an end except when community vigilantes and community elders mediated a truce. "It is very clear that this IGP has only led this Nigeria Police Force to the cesspool of professional misconduct and gross indiscipline to the extent that the Police could not prevent mobs from invading public and private properties of Nigerians which largely was motivated by the absence of armed police operatives.