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The choice of DIG Okiro as acting Inspector General of Police over DIG Onovo is most unfair and unjust not only to Onovo but to all the good people of this country who thought that the Yar’adua administration is out to right the wrongs of the immediate past administration.
Some of us have just started building our confidence in the administration with the directive from Yar’adua that former IG handover to the most senior officer in the Force. Naturally, Onovo, the most senior officer is expected to succeed Ehindero as substantive IG. I am not in any way opposed to the emergence of Okiro as acting IG but what I am opposed to is that square pegs were not put in square holes by bypassing Onovo for Okiro.
We all know that such an exalted position is always subjected to political maneuverings. Politics, as they say, is very dirty and some people are prepared to play it dirty to get what they want.
Onovo, a quite and refined gentleman to the core, would not involve himself in a smear campaign to get his mission accomplished. It should not be a do or die affair. Onovo, I strongly believe, is contented with the position he now occupies having meandered his way from grass to grace. Whoever is conversant with the history of Onovo would certainly agree that God has been kind to him. But this does not imply that he should forgo what is legitimate due to him.
It is public knowledge in the Police Force that there was a frosty relationship between the immediate past IG, Ehindero and Onovo. This is not out of the ordinary. Most superior officers in a workplace are not comfortable with their subordinates who are usually perceived as threats. Tafa Balogun treated Ehindero with contempt when the former was IG. Onovo suffered the same fate from the hands of Ehindero.
The question Yar’adua should ask is why did Ehindero refuse to handover to Onovo as earlier ordered? The excuse that he needed time to prepare for his handover was just a ruse. If he had filtered some few words in favour or against any of the favourites, did the President make an independent inquiry to ascertain the veracity of such claims? This is because, if we are going to be governed on hearsay, then we still have a long way to go.
Those who argue that Onovo lost out because he is Igbo are still living in the past. We have graduated from this line of thinking as a nation. How long are we going to prevent the Igbos from occupying exalted positions when we are living together as a nation? Was the immediate past Senate President not an Igbo? This can be likened to the case of a man who disapproves of his wife going to certain parts of the room they live in. It can never be sustained.
Others argue that Onovo lost because of his failure to unravel most murder cases that took place when he headed the investigative arm of the police. This is equally naïve and myopic. Onovo should not be made to pay for the failure of the institution he works for. The state is widely implicated in the aforementioned murder cases and how does Onovo stand to blame for not exposing the state knowing fully well the kind of system we practice? If we are to apportion blame, it is the Inspector General of Police at the time that should be held responsible for the failures of the Police Force because the bulk stops at his table.
In the final analysis, DIG Onovo is a gentleman on whom I build an absolute trust. He is a fine cop and a professional. He can lead the present Police Force out the woods. He deserves the best from the Force. He does not deserve humiliation from the same institution he has so diligently worked for all the better part of his life.
Nuhu Shuaib
Idoji Ward Okene, Kogi State
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