For Deputy Commissioner of Police, Tunji Disu, here’s a memo for the moment. First, congratulations on your new cap as head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). And kudos to Inspector General of Police Usman Baba for choosing merit above everything else. Disu is a perfect fit. At least, going by his pedigree. His predecessor, DCP Abba Kyari, left bold imprints of efficiency.

Kyari showed courage. He dared the devils. He was ruthless when it mattered. He hit the criminals hard, indeed very hard. He roused his team to a new level of strategic innovation in crime-fighting and intelligence gathering with tech-infusion. Kyari was cool and okay. But he also got us wondering at some moments. His ruthless efficiency against kidnappers and sundry goons also flipped him into the umbra of accusations and allegations of unwholesome dealings in the discharge of his duties.

Some persons still have pending petitions against him; petitions laden with allegations that cast him as a sullied super cop; a lover of lucre with all its filth, indeed a cop who relishes a sip from a maggoty cup. But they remained mere allegations, at least for now.

Kyari truly is a super cop who stayed up late just so we might sleep with two eyes closed. He worked with a team and together they dared the demons, even some military goons who strayed off their call of duty were not spared. I fell in love with his results. Impressed that in Nigeria, we have a stand out cop who is bullish with performance. Deploying technology, he could sniff kidnappers hundreds of kilometres away. He could tell a criminal by merely looking at him. He was that good.

But this same Kyari has a down side. It bothered me. Countless times, I had voiced my resentment of this character trait to a few colleagues close to him. It was an unintelligent art never to be associated with an intelligence officer. Especially one holding an exalted and equally dangerous office. And here it is: Kyari was showy, flamboyant, loved to grab the headlines, was too visible in social circuits, particularly at events where goons, crooks, scammers and the noble freely mix. And then, this other trait. Kyari, from his manifestations, can’t keep a secret. He flaunts information. He advertises his appearances on social media like any other social media user. But Kyari is not any other person. He heads a special unit in the police, a unit marked for death by the high and powerful.

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 Kidnappers and new tech scammers are powerful criminals. They are not break-in thieves or some in-traffic robbers. They are highly organised, highly mobilised by huge, fat ransoms. They, like most big stage criminals, have strong links in the national security network. They have friends in the military, police and everywhere. This is the norm, not just in Nigeria but everywhere crime flourishes like cedars of Lebanon. Knowing this and having this knowledge, Kyari pleasures in putting his life and that of his team at great risk by announcing his itinerary on social media. Kyari’s Facebook wall is replete with his image and those of his team members announcing their arrival at a location. I thought this was too cheap and unwise for a man who ought to be operating undercover. Plus, he got too media-friendly. He hauled media awards and was never coy in showing them off. His job does not permit such flashiness. His station demands unobtrusiveness, tact, deliberate modesty, and discreetness. He shunned them all and embraced a lifestyle of flash and dash.  Just like Ibrahim Magu, the disgraced ex-Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and his counterpart, Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer Executive Chairman of the EFCC. Both Ribadu and Magu functioned more effectively in the media space than on the actual job they were appointed to do. They both hugged the headlines, tried and convicted their ‘victims’ on the pages of newspapers before ever investigating them. And hey, they both ended ignominiously. Their disgraceful denouement defied their demigod dispositions while in office. A case of two failed cops. Kyari seems steeped on this path, sadly.

Even now, in the midst of an alleged scandal and criminal cavorting with a notorious internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, Kyari is still drooling on social media, editing, re-editing  and deleting his watery defence hurriedly put out when the scandal broke. He spoke too soon, reacted too early. For an intelligence officer, that was a clear lack of discretion. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-American movie star and body-builder would always tell his victims in his movies, ‘you moved too soon’, Kyari moved too soon, retorted too soon to a swirling scandal without factoring how much information the US investigators have on him and his liaison with Hushpuppi. Can somebody tell Kyari to keep quiet and allow only his lawyers (and no one else) to speak for him?

But no matter the outcome of the Hushpuppi-Kyarigate, Kyari has left bold imprints on the performance chart. He’s part and product of a corrupt system. He’s a victim of the larger rot in the Nigerian society, a very corrupt nation where even public officers including politicians scam the people they swore oath to protect. Kyari is a product of Nigeria Police. The World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI) ranks Nigeria Police as the most corrupt in the world. It shares the same space with Police in Haiti, Mexico, Kenya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Russia (largely for human rights abuses), Pakistan and Burma. A very bad company. But that’s where our police are: on the boulevard of infamy.

And here’s the context of this memo to the man of the moment: Tunji Disu. A Lagos Boy, Disu gave character and humaneness to Rapid Response Squad, RSS, which he once headed in Lagos. He gave policing and crime-control a human face. By Jove, RSS was efficient under him. And being a Lagos Boy and doing a good job with RRS places him in the good books of the Lagos media, the Fleet Street of Nigerian journalism. But that in itself is dangerous. When Disu does well as is expected, the media will massage his ego, ululate him with plaudits but he shouldn’t let it get into his head. Ribadu, Magu and Kyari did. Their tales petered out from full moon to no moon at all. A disconcerting denouement!

Lessons for Disu: Avoid the dash of social media (Let the police publicity unit professionally advertise your exploits), avoid social doings, make friends but don’t let your friends unmake you, grow thick skin against media laudation (it can make your head swell and make you swig from the poisoned broth of public adulation). This is far more intoxicating than any hard hooch. And when you see any Hushpuppi or a silhouette of him, investigate, arrest and prosecute him. Never take orders from him, lest he sucks you in. Above all, do your job with the full consciousness that you are being watched and that someday, you’ll be made to account to the people. Ribadu, Magu and now Kyari were not mindful of public accountability and they fell. May you not walk this inglorious path!