•••SAYS IT IS A COMPENSATION FOR BETRAYAL
First Republic Minister of information, Chief Edwin Clark has berated President Mohammadu Buhari for re-appointing a sacked former Inspector General Police, Suleiman Abbah, as Chairman, Board of Trustees, Nigeria Police Trust Fund.
Clark who is the leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum described the appointment as disloyalty and a compensation for betrayal.
Clark said Buhari disregarded the provisions of Federal Character as enshrined in the country’s Constitution in his appointments
Recall that former President Goodluck Jonathan, sacked Abbah after the 2015 general elections for the role he played in rigging the 2015 election.
But Suleiman Abba was reappointed as Chairman, Board of Trustees, Nigeria Police Trust Fund, on May 5, 2023 by the outgoing President Buhari.
Suleiman Abba is from Jigawa State, in the North Western geo-political zone.
According to Clark, what Buhari did was apparently to spite Jonathan who sacked Abbah, almost a month to handover in 2015 and giving him appointment few weeks of his departure called for probe.
According to Clark, the re-appointment of Suleiman Abba as Chairman of the Police Trust Fund, appeared to Nigerins as a continuous compensation or reward for a job well-done for the roles he played during the 2015 general elections.
The Ijaw leader further explained that one cannot also forget the disloyal action of Suleiman Abba, when he went to the airport to receive Muhammadu Buhari, without the knowledge and or authorisation of his principal, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who was the President at the time.
He said such actions led to his sack from the Police Force.
Clark stated that Buhari eulogized the legacy of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, and his peaceful conduct during the 2015, general elections, when he conceded defeat and queried what would be Buhari’s s legacy after his years as president,
He disclosed that the reappointment of Abbah was like a compensation for those aiding and executing wrong acts.
He said Abbah who was alleged to have conspired and worked to remove Dr. Jonathan from office at all cost was breaching the constitution of the country.
Describing the President’s action as nepotistic, he said the outgoing President is leaving the country more divided and more devastated than he met it.
He advised President Buhari to obey court rulings, including the ones delivered on Nnamdi Kanu.
The full statement:
In any heterogenous society, laws are put in place to ensure that all groups and facets, have a sense of belonging. Nigeria is not an exception, thus leaders and framers of the laws of the land, enacted rules for our co-habitation as a people. For instance, Section 14 (1) and (3) of the 1999 Constitution states:
(1) The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice.
3 The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies
In a paper by three authors, Cinjel Nandes Dickson (PhD), et al, titled “Federal Character Principle and Productivity in the Nigerian Public Sector”, here, in a nutshell is how they described federal character principle:
Federal character principle is a doctrine which was introduced by the Nigerian government to ensure equitable representation and as well prevent the dominance of persons from a few states, religion or particular ethnic group in the governance of the country and the sphere of the public sector.
It is pertinent to state that the prerogative of ensuring that this aspect of the laws of the land is implemented and or executed, lies squarely on the shoulders of the President of the country, presently, Muhammadu Buhari.
However, it is quite disturbing that the same man who swore to uphold the laws of the land, is flagrantly breaching them.
A case in point is the recent re-appointment of Suleiman Abba as Chairman, Board of Trustees, Nigeria Police Trust Fund, on 5th May, 2023.
Suleiman Abba is from Jigawa State, in the North Western geo-political zone the previous Secretary of the Fund, Mr. Abdullahi Bala is from Sokoto State, also from North Western geo-political zone.
The previous Secretary who resigned his post to contest gubernatorial election is also from Sokoto State, northern part of the country.
One expected that if the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the police fund is from the northern part of the country, the Secretary should come from the South and vice versa, because this is one of the ways of keeping Nigeria’s unity.
Mr. Suleiman Abba is a former Inspector General of Police (IGP).
He joined the Nigeria Police Force as a graduate in 1984 and rose to the rank of Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police in February 2012. For him to be made IGP, many senior officers and about seven (7) Deputy Inspector Generals (DIGs) including Mike Zuokumor, who hail from Bayelsa State as President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, were forced out when they were retired from service.
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did not want to appoint Mike Zuokumor, who was qualified by merit because they were from the same State/Region.
With such huge concession made by Mr. President Jonathan to appoint Suleiman Abba IGP, many of us thought Abba would serve the country, the Nigeria Police Force and the President Jonathan’s administration with all diligence and truthfulness as Inspector General of Police, and also having regard to how close President Jonathan was with the traditional ruler who recommended Suleiman Abba for the appointment.
So, we were shocked and disappointed to hear of the roles he played during the 2015 presidential elections which took place between 28th and 29th March, 2015, especially in Kano State, from where I got calls from prominent Nigerians informing me that the Inspector General of Police was fully involved in rigging the elections for Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who was also contesting the presidential elections, that he in fact, encouraged under age voting, and allowed voting to continue into the dark hours of the night.
As someone with whom I close, I called him on the phone, and confronted him of all the allegations, but he denied everything.
I reported the matter to President Goodluck Jonathan when I returned from my village Kiagbodo immediately after the elections.
Further investigations confirmed all the reports we received to be true.
The sudden sack which came barely one month to the official handover by President Goodluck Jonathan to the incoming Buhari regime, has certainly fuelled the rumour making rounds that President Jonathan was poised to take his pound of flesh against loyalists that allegedly betrayed him during the just concluded elections in the country.
The first victim, Suleiman Abba, was chosen to occupy the exalted position of number one policeman after the then Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Dikko Abubakar completed his mandatory 35 years of service in the force. MD, as he was popularly called, had the option of either retiring gracefully or applying for an extension.
In his quest to accomplish what was generally perceived as the good works he was doing in the force, he applied for extension of tenure which, unfortunately, was rejected by President Jonathan, who quickly appointed then unknown Suleiman Abba as his successor.
When the race for a new IGP was at its peek, many tested and well known officers including Solomon Arase who was just appointed as the Acting Police boss, were in contention. Feelers said President Jonathan woefully ignored wise counsel to choose the much tested and admired Arase and went for his old time friend, Abba, whom he reportedly trusted will not rock the boat in his quest to continue in office.
To a large extent, Abba did not initially disappoint him. He held sway unabashedly, and even had the temerity to wade into the crisis over speakership at the House of Representative. He posted and re-posted tested and tried officers to suit his political whims and caprices, unknown to many.
One of his victims was the vibrant and crime bursting former Commissioner of Police, Lagos State and later the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in-charge of Zone 2, Umaru Manko, who was humiliated out of Lagos just because some people spread the wicked and unfounded rumour that he was relating with APC members.
The former Police boss did not wink an eyelid when he replaced him with AIG Mbu, a posting that raised dust all over the country. Unfortunately, Abba did not envisage that the tide would turn against him someday. Eventually when it did, ‘escapist’ became his second name.
Sources at the Force Headquarters said Abba’s grand design to frustrate efforts of his benefactor – President Jonathan – kick started with the preparation of officers and men of the force for the onerous task of ensuring that there was a peaceful election devoid of rigging by any of the parties.
He was expected to deliver the highest level of professionalism even when one cannot completely rule out having allegiance to the party in power.
However, sources said that he had a grand plan to to be firm even as some alleged, he had sympathy for the opposition party, APC.
This came to the fore after reports of many under aged Northerners being allowed to vote without restrictions by, especially, members of the force, reached the Presidency.
There were also allegations of short changing of members of the force that took part in the elections with regard to their welfare as against their counterparts in other security agencies.
This, it was gathered, demoralized them to the extent that many looked the other way even while some people were deeply involved in electoral malpractices.
Suleiman Abba reportedly crowned his grand plan by discreetly issuing a standing directive to all top officers to ignore orders from anywhere and obey only his while on duty.
That, according to sources, was what played out in Port-Harcourt after the presidency discovered, to their utter chagrin, that AIG Ogunsaki who was posted to their much-cherished Rivers State, was also firm.
Sources said efforts to effect immediate changes were nearly thwarted after Suleiman Abba made himself incommunicado while frantic efforts were been made to reach him. That done, it was learnt that the Presidency kept on receiving security reports of clandestine meetings.
The whole scenario came to the limelight few weeks after Buhari was declared the winner of the election.
President Jonathan was reportedly shocked to his bone marrows after he saw a video recording of his own IGP receiving the President-elect at the airport without clearance from him.
To worsen matters, he was also shown the same IGP conspicuously among those who attended the ceremopny when General Buhari was handed his certificate of return from INEC.
Sources said the visibly enraged President quickly detailed his aides to ascertain if the IGP was officially invited by INEC and it emerged later that he was not. Then the vexed issue of Ekiti state.
Even when political pundits posited that Jonathan called for peace, he did not fail to show his displeasure on learning that the warring 18 APC Honourable members were enjoying the services of formidable teams of mobile policemen posted by Suleiman Abba against the interest of Governor Fayose of the PDP.
At this stage, a flurry of security reports flooded the presidency about Abba’s possible sympathy for APC while those that appointed him were still in power. Spectacularly, one of the reports detailed how Abba allegedly reached out to passionately plead his retention after the May 29th handover date.
His emissary was said to have reeled out innumerable measures Abba embarked upon, using his office, to under cut the ruling party to the chagrin of his spectators.
According to impeccable sources, immediately Jonathan lost the election, Abba threw caution to the winds and started negotiating with APC for tenure elongation. He started treating Buhari like the President even while Jonathan was still in office.
The presidency was flooded with complaints of his disloyalty even from other security chiefs who were piqued by Abba’s aloofness and uncooperative attitude during the elections. In fact, his conduct after the elections tried to expose other service chiefs as been disloyal.
Police sources said President Jonathan was so rattled with the ugly trend of events especially, as it concerns Suleiman Abba, whom he reposed so much confidence in, that he decided to use him as the first major victim of perceived disloyalty. President Jonathan has vowed, according to sources, that this trend will continue with any other political appointees found to have played ignoble roles against him during the elections.
Just like one of the columnists recently observed. “Abba’s treachery must have struck the wrong side of Jonathan. That may explain why the man exhibited the level of swiftness that is clearly alien to him.”
The Nigeria Police Force is a federal institution and the Nigeria Police Trust Fund which is established to cater for the Police welfare and condition of service, is a federal government agency.
But in appointing people to the Board, President Muhammadu Buhari disregarded the provisions of the Federal Character as enshrined in the country’s Constitution. President Buhari has a penchant for doing this.
And this is very unfortunate. It is one of the reasons why the Southern and Middle-Belt Leaders Forum, which I lead, took the Federal Government to court for breeching the constitution, and some of the declarations we are requesting from the court are:
A DECLARATION that S153(n), 80, 162(2) and Section 31, 32 Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the constitution (as amended) have given legal effect to S16 (1) (a) (b) and 16(2) (a) (b) (c) of the 1999 constitution and vests the courts with jurisdiction to entertain and enforce the provisions contained in Sections 16(1) (a) (b) and 16(2) (a) (b) and (c).
3. A DECLARATION that the executive powers to make appointments that have been exercised by 1st Defendant from 2015 till date, into key Government positions such as Permanent Secretary cadre, Head of Extra-Ministerial Departments of Federal Government, Principal Representatives of Nigeria abroad etc, violate the constitutional requirements of compliance with the Federal Character principle in accordance with Section 14(3)(4) and 171(5) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), whereby persons from a few states and ethnic sectional groups are appointed at the expense of national unity and loyalty.
4. A DECLARATION that the present composition of the government of the federation, and most of its agencies especially as regards the composition of its security and quasi security architecture do not reflect the Federal Character of Nigeria but rather there is a predominance of persons from a few States and sectional groups dominating the opportunities and threaten national unity and integration.
5. A DECLARATION that the various appointments into positions in government, especially into strategic government agencies such as NNPC, NIA and other strategic infrastructural and regulatory institutions are ethnically discriminatory and lopsided and these violate the express provisions of the constitution as contained in Section 14, 171(1), 171(5) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and therefore unconstitutional, illegal and ultra vires.
The Plaintiffs in the matter include:
1. Chief E. K. Clark
2. Chief Reuben Fasoranti
3. Dr. John Nnia Nwodo
4. Dr. Pogu Bitrus
5. Chief Ayo Adebanjo
6. Alaowei Broderick Bozimo
7. Chief Sarah Doketri
8. Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife
9. Air Commodore Idongiset Nkanga
10. Senator Kofoworola Bucknor Akerele
11. Prof. (Chief) Julir N. E. Umukoro
12. Elder Stephen Bangoji
13. Alhaji Tijani Babatunde
14. Mrs. Rose Obuoforibo
15. Mr. Adakole Ijoki
16. Dr. Charles S. Nwakeaku (Ph.D)
The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari is the 1st Defendant, while the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice is the 2nd Defendant, the Clerk, National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the 3rd Defendant, and the 4th Defendant is the Federal Character Commission.
As Defendants, they raised preliminary objections that we, the Plaintiffs have no locus standi and we have no cause of action. But the court ruled in our favour on 14th April, 2023, that we have locus standi and that we have cause of action.
