Gani slams FG over non-appointment of Igbo as IG
By YINKA FABOWALE
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
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•Chief Gani Fawehinmi
(SAN)
Photo:
Sun News Publishing |
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Lagos lawyer and human rights crusader, Chief Gani Fawehinmi
(SAN), has slammed the Federal Government over the shoddy
treatment meted out to the Deputy Inspector General of Police,
Mr Ogbonnaya Onovo, who took over briefly from retired Inspector
General of Police (IG), Mr Sunday Ehindero, before the appointment
of Mr Mike Okiro as the acting IG in his stead.
Fawehinmi citicised the sidelining of Onovo, who was next
in rank to Ehindero, condemning it as unfair, unjust, unconstitutional
and betraying an apparent age-long mindset of excluding the
Igbo people, who constitute one of the three largest ethnic
groups in Nigeria from the leadership of the police.
Onovo, an Igbo and most senior officer, took over from Ehindero
on the latter’s retirement, only for Okiro to be named
Acting Inspector General shortly after.
Fawehinmi frowned at this, wondering if it was a mere chance
that the headship of the police force had eluded the Igbo,
despite their sterling credentials.
In a statement he issued in Lagos on Tuesday, the human rights
activist observed that no Igbo is among the 13 indigenous
occupants of the exalted position since independence to date.
He said the continued marginalisation of the Igbo from the
top echelon of the police breached the constitution, which,
in its preamble, sought to establish equality and justice
among the constituents of the federation.
Besides, he said the constitution did not support this, as
Section 14, sub section 3 provided inter-alia that: "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."
He asked if none of the many qualified Igbo officers in the
upper hierarchy of the police did not merit the number one
position.
In respect of Onovo, Fawehinmi said: "If he (Onovo) was
qualified to be a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG),
why should he not be qualified to be an Inspector General
of Police (IGP)?," adding, "I demand an explanation
from the Yar’Adua adiministration."
The radical lawyer said the development appeared a distrust
of the Igbo, as a psychological after-effect of the civil
war in which the rest of the federation engaged the secessionist
Igbo in the eastern part of the country for three years of
bloody conflict.
He warned that the trend, unless checked, constituted a threat
to the unity of the country. His words: "I am worried
because I hold the unity of this country so dearly. Apart
from being a lawyer, I believe that the unity of Nigeria must
be taken as a religion in the sense that not only should we
believe in unity, we must be seen to be doing things to promote
unity. Whatever may be the reason, or non-reason for the exclusion
of an Igbo from an appointment as Inspector General of Police
cannot be right and something should be done about it so that
every Nigerian, whatever may be his or her tribe or his or
her religion, is taken as a member of a united family of Nigeria."
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