By Simeon Nwakaudu
When I pitied the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris in one of my write-ups earlier in the year, it was simply because I saw very clearly, a man out to destroy the Nigerian Police because of his disgraceful love for partisan politics. Indeed, because of his “covet” membership of the APC.
Like a man on a mission against the nation, this IGP has reduced the Nigerian Police into a gang of electoral fraudsters, bent on destroying the foundations of democracy, just because he has been conscripted to do his master’s bid.
IGP Ibrahim Idris, by any stretch of imagination is the worst thing to happen to the Police. He has thrown away the garb of neutrality and adorned the broom of APC. Not even Oyegun and his failing friends propel APC more than IGP Ibrahim.
Today, leaders of the APC are his defenders. His ever present cheerleaders. In IGP Ibrahim Idris, the APC has found a ruthless partner, ever ready to help them cover their political weaknesses.
On December 10, 2016, IGP Ibrahim Idris sent 28,000 Policemen, 20 Gunboats, Police Helicopters, Horses, Dogs and deadly snipers to manipulate the Rivers Rerun in favour of the APC. Everywhere these compromised Policemen went, they left a tale of ballot box snatching, deaths, robbery, injuries on electoral officials and unprintable actions on law abiding citizens.
The Rivers Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) led by one Akin Fakorede was turned into Special Election Rigging Squad (SERS). Wherever election was concluded, Akin Fakorede or his men would rush there to either snatch result sheets or disrupt the result declaration process.
In many instances, these deadly policemen were caught on video manipulating the electoral process or shooting sporadically with the intention to rig.
On one particular instance, (December 12, 2016) Akin Fakorede was captured on video at the Rivers East Senatorial District collation centre attempting to disrupt collation of results and snatch same for the APC. The Police embarrassed Nigeria in concert with other security agencies.
No rerun elections held in Rivers South-East where SARS and Army personnel over-powered electoral officials and took election materials to a private home belonging to one of the candidates of the APC. The deadly actions of the police and the military in this senatorial district were captured on tape.
Rather than show remorse for his crime against democracy, IGP Ibrahim Idris lured hatchet online writers to unleash shameless negative propaganda against the Rivers State Governor, Government and her people.
He set up a kangaroo committee headed by one Damian Okoro to justify the police descent into the political arena for the purpose of election rigging. The selection of Okoro was another fraud. IGP Idris mischievously placed an Igbo man in a position to authenticate his fraud. Aside Okoro, 80 percent of the members of the kangaroo committee were of northern extraction. They went ahead to dance naked in the public.
The police killed, maimed and stole part of the mandate of Rivers people. Yet it was the police under IGP Idris that blamed the victim, Rivers people.
IGP Idris before, during and after the rerun elections acted as if he was a candidate running for elections in Rivers State. He toyed with the security details of Governor Wike and deliberately put an elected governor’s life at risk. He withdrew the governor’s Chief Security Officer, his ADC, Orderly and majority of the security details to expose the governor to harm . He emboldened Akin Fakorede to metamorphose into an electoral terror in Rivers State.
On December 12, 2016, some policemen attached to Rivers State Governor defied the IGP and stopped Akin Fakorede from harming Governor Wike as instructed. The IGP summarily dismissed them and blamed the policemen for the electoral woes of his political party, the APC.
IGP Ibrahim Idris by setting up the Investigative Panel, sought to become a judge in his own case. He wanted to become a saint, even in hell.
For the sake of protecting the nation’s democracy, Governor Wike as a law abiding leader approached the court on the Investigative Panel set up by the IGP to justify the fraud and violence the police unleashed on the people of Rivers State during the December 10, 2016 rerun elections.
As the undisputed defender of Nigeria’s democracy, he took the step on behalf of the Rivers people, under siege by the nation’s police.
On Tuesday, May 9, 2017, “the Federal High Court in Abuja, declared as illegal, the Special Joint Investigative Panel that was constituted by the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim, to uncover those behind violence that marred the December 10, 2016, legislative re-run election in Rivers State.
“Justice Gabriel Kolawole described the Police probe panel which included operatives of the Department of State Service, DSS, as “a strange contraption whose existence will create legal doubt”. Justice Kolawole held that the 15-man Special Joint Investigative Panel is a body unknown to any law in the country. He maintained that neither the Police Act, Security Agencies Act nor the 1999 Constitution, as amended, empowered the IGP to set-up and co-opt the DSS which is not answerable to him but to the Presidency, into the Rivers re-run probe panel. “
If the IGP has any modicum of respect for decency left, he must resign his commission and formally join his friends and family in the APC. This declaration by the Federal High Court, in Abuja has brought to the fore, the damage that the IGP and his criminally minded colleagues in some other security agencies have done to the electoral system.
Why must IGP Ibrahim Idris be in the forefront of the illegal struggle to make Nigeria a one-party state? Why is the IGP ready to unleash violence on Rivers people just because they have pitched their tent with the PDP?
The IGP and those beating the evil drum for him, must respect the will of Rivers people.
Under the leadership of IGP Ibrahim Idris, the security situation in the country is degenerating daily, with the police failing to act.
I like to remind the IGP that Nigerians still remember that he was the Commissioner of Police in Kano State during the 2015 Presidential Election where the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner was murdered in a questionable arson after fantastic results were churned out for APC. That result is still being questioned by researchers and the international community.
The Abuja Federal High Court judgment is an indictment on IGP Ibrahim Idris’s love for illegality and electoral fraud. He may have Federal resources to sponsor online propaganda, but history will never be kind to him.
For me, the most important take away in the indictment of IGP Ibrahim Idris is the fact that he will soon account for the blood of Rivers people shed by his evil Special Election Rigging Squad ( SERS).
