Ibrahim Idris : Dancing on the Graves

Chidi Obineche

The Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris has etched more epaulets on his shoulders as IGP than he got in all the combined years of his career. He has endured red- hot flaks, swam in cold – torrid water, waltzed through putrescence and has always crept back to the in- hole. In his work, he is perceived in multiple colours , shredded in variegated prisms .

Some see him as the fire – breathing dragon, others see him as a coy dove whose deftness on security matters can even come in defiance. Last Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari stunned the nation when he said the IGP; an appointee of his disobeyed him. In his words, his order to him to relocate to Benue was clear and unambiguous but the wily cop chose a definition and abridgement most suited to his fancy.

This particular defiance swims in sweetness. No regrets; no pain; no bitterness and no sanctions. Perhaps, it may be situated within the realmn of  Ayn Rand’s famous words that “ Defiance, not obedience is the American’s answer to overbearing authority”. It seems in all perceptible applications a rebounder of independence and self- insulation, a critical recourse to self – service.

But Ibrahim Idris is not a pawn of creative disobedience. He left his flanks sorely bare, flatteringly vulnerable and open to invidious interpretations. He mowed down mountains of cesspits by exposing his tendrils of biases. It was buried inside a pretty pattern of asymmetry.  Burning hot in the pit of his stomach was his open objection to the Open Grazing Law in Benue which he fingered as the harbinger of the bloodbath.

Indissoluble by the heat, he came hard on the victims, set the furnace and crucible at defiance and donned plaudits and knocks all around. He appeased and hurt in different breaths. He held the threshold. He was at ease with himself in unmeasured tones. He surged willfully raking more murk than the killings brought. Beyond the bright searchlights of his courage, and the windows of sense, old questions begged for answers.

Though his convictions looked frail, his arguments in the cool minds of the discerning splashed more dirt and phlegm on his uniform, carousing his visage. In all knowledge, dissent he may honourably admit is not defiance. Disobedience couched on comedy may not always be classified as defiance too. But when viewed within the constricting confines, it becomes a snort of contempt of power and superior authority.

This is not the point of his grace. If he abused truth, he was merely obeying the still voice within. Unusual people thrive in extreme capacity for defiance and dare the remonstrations. After all, in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. He was just working in the direction of his dreams in common hours.

It was a clenched fist raised to the victims, spitting into their eyes, and urinating on their graves with teeth bared. Was it not said somewhere that it is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

The IGP not only told us screwy things, he believed in them all. This is the man who has proved that the precepts of justice and maintenance of law and order can also be scrawny. He found something only he can say and he said them sans respect and duty. He failed to learn from Brandon Sanderson that “The Hallmark of Insecurity Is Bravado”. Bravado is always a cover up for insecurity. 

According to Mahatma Ghandi, the Indian philosopher and statesman, ” Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words” Herein is the final key to his bravado. Herein is his predilection for false bravado  located. A little hyperbole in the line of work never hurts.

He hails from Kutigi, Lavun in Niger state and was born on January 15, 1959. He enlisted into the Nigerian Police Force in 1984, after graduating from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria with a Bachelors degree in Agriculture. He also holds a degree in law from the University of Maiduguri. He is married with children.