The Presidency has said the appointment of the next Inspector-General of Police will not be based on ethnic considerations.
Current IGP Mohammed Adamu is expected to leave office today, Monday, as he attains the retirement age even as the South East has been clomouring for the position.
But speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said it is impracticable for top security appointments to be made based on factors such as ethnicity or regions.
“If you are going to appoint the service chiefs from every ethnic group in this country, you are going to have more than 250 Inspector-General of Police, 250 Chief of Army Staff, 250 Chief of Naval Staff,” Garba said. “It’s not going to work like that. And they have their own systems of producing leadership.
“If we say we are going to use ethnicity or region as the basis, then we have lost it. This is about law and order, it is not about ethnic identity. This country finished with tribalism in the 1960s, why are we back to it now?
“But if you have two, three positions – look at what happened with the service chiefs just appointed: two from the South, two from the North. If you are talking about religion, two Muslims, two Christians. So what do you want again?
“The President will rather have an Inspector-General of Police who will make you and I safer, protect life and property than one who is more pronounced by his tribal marks.”
Mr. Shehu also commented on the latest Corruption Perception Index report published by Transparency International.
The report had ranked Nigeria 149 out of 180 countries surveyed, one of its worst ratings in years.
TI cited an absence of transparency, nepotism, lack of adequate anti-corruption legal frameworks, the prevalence of bribery and extortion in the Nigerian Police, corruption in the security sector, among others, as reasons for the low rating.
But Shehu said the report was not an indictment on the Buhari administration but on Nigerians.
“This one by TI is not a judgement on Buhari or his administration or its war against corruption, it is a judgement on Nigerians,” Mr. Shehu said. “Because if you look at the major indices they used in arriving at these conclusions, they used eight indices, six of which found Nigeria as being more or less at the same position, nothing has been lost.
“The two that they dwelt on, that caused this backsliding, are essentially Nigerian problems. When they look at the varieties of democracy, they are talking about the political culture of this country, vote-buying, thuggery. Is it Buhari that is a thug? We are not doing thuggery. And we know those who are doing it.
“And when they talk about the justice project – which is a big minus in that report – they are talking about perceived corruption in the judiciary. These perceptions are essentially not correct.
“Yes, there are issues in that sector, but wouldn’t it have been nice to note the reforms that are ongoing in that sector. So many changes are going on. Acknowledge it, so that you encourage those judicial officers that are upright and the system keeps getting better.”
