IT is the beautiful game of football that brought about the phrase “extra time” into world vocabulary. According to football lexicon, “Extra time is more time added to a game, if the score is tied at the end of normal time.” It is this extra time that makes football enthusiasts stand on edge while the game lasts, many footballers feel very uncomfortable and are often speechless, with emotion running haywire as they watch expectantly the unfolding drama until the central referee blows the last whistle.
Many ardent football enthusiasts include Nigerian security operatives, especially the Nigerian Police whose commander-in-chief, President Muhammadu Buhari, is known to be a great football enthusiast.
Interestingly, every football match has rules and regulations guiding every activity as stipulated by the world governing body, FIFA.
In Nigeria, as at February 1, 2021, tongues have been wagging, not only because of the daily killings being perpetrated by killer herdsmen on the one side and vicious bandits who kill, maim and
rape defenseless women on the other hand, no, tongues are wagging because the man who, for two years, could not strategically plan to decimate these killers, thereby fulfilling
his constitutional mandate, has miraculously found himself back in the seat and has been offered an extension, or what footballers call “ extra time,” thanks to the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and President of Nigeria.
The recent happenings in the Nigeria Police, where a retired Inspector-General’s tenure was further extended by 90 days (three months) by the President, with only one reason adduced by the Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammad Dingyadi, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, who said the extension was necessary to give room for robust and efficient selection of a successor, raise many questions.
That statement, to many, lacked credence, as it was public knowledge six months
back that the IGP Mohammed Adamu was expected to proceed on retirement. This has portrayed Dingyadi as a minister who has
lost touch of his official briefing. He did not consider the morality and the psychological effects of the stay-put action of the IGP on the police force and public perception. Was the minister not aware of the rules of the game before this particular extension? How long can Nigerians continue to accept such flimsy and incoherent excuses for obvious official lapses?
Even if the government, as advised by the minister, were embarking on a “wild goose chase,” would it not have been better for Adamu to hand over to the next most senior officer, pending when a new IGP is found?
Many argue that, if the three months were only to allow the government search for a suitable candidate, would Adamu roll up his sleeves and go after the kidnappers or is he warming up to clamp down on the invading
bandits that are storming communities and killing innocent citizens while their partners in crime, the infiltrating herdsmen, are busy killing, defiling women, destroying every farm crop along their way in three months?
Or would he carry out the expected restructuring of the police in ninety days? Maybe
the government, the minister and Adamu are planning to relentlessly work hard to peruse through the police register to search for the right and suitable candidate since, according
to records, over 10 eligible top officers, among whom are Assistant Inspectors-General of Iolice and Deputy Inspectors-General of Police billed to bow out of the Nigeria Police on retirement before the end of stipulated 90 days approved for Adamu as extra time. Among those already bowing out in retirement are three DIGs and
10 AIGs, including former EFCC boss Ibrahim Lamorde, Aminchi Baraya and Nkpa Inakwu. The AIGs are Nkereuwem Akpan, Olafimi-
han Adeoye, Agunbiade Labore, Undie Adie and Olugbenga Adeyanju. Others are Asuquo Amba, Mohammad Mustapha, Jonah Jackson, Olushola Babajide and Yunana Babas.
Many legal luminaries in the country are unanimous in their legal opinion concerning the presidential extra time granted Adamu, describing it as “unconstitutional.”
One is even surprised that the Attorney- General of the Federation, who is the legal conscience of the government, has kept sealed lips over the situation, but when it concerns EFCC and Ibrahim Magu, all his legal tentacles become functional.
Why was the President allowed to stray when he should have been well guided so as not to flop by flouting a law he appended his presidential signature to? It speaks volumes for a democratically elected President to contravene the law
of the country that he swore to uphold. Weeks
before this unconstitutional act, the President was also caught in the web of illegality when he refused to wear the COVID-19 face mask despite the fact that he personally signed a law that every defaulters who are not wearing face masks should be arrested by law enforcement agents.
It was a law Adamu tried to help in enforcing
a day after retirement, when he directed all the AIGs in charge of police zones across the country, to effect the arrest of defaulters who did not wear face masks. It is these recent happenings in the country that are giving members of the public concern and send tongues wagging over certain situations in the country.
Here is an officer who has performed far below average despite the fact that the security community had rated him very high based on his pedigree, only to be weighed down on the scale of professional scale and found wanting. Unfortunatenately, this writer was among those who rated Adamu very high, but it is rather unfortunate.
Adamu and his predecessor helped to deepen the gully of decay, which past IGPs were trying hard to cover. In 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo approved an extra one year for then IGP, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, a qualified lawyer, who later retired into trouble for an alledged fraud perpetrated with the conniviance of the commissioner in charge of budget, Mr. Obaniyi, who was arrested at the Force Headquarter gate at night while carting away large sums of police money. He requested for a two-year extension, but a year was granted to him.
Yet, the entire years Ehindero ruled the Nige- ria Police, he was only remembered for his programme tagged “Paradim Shift.” A programme that evaporated into the Nigerian airspace the same week it was declared with much fanfare and irrelevant speeches that never shifted anything in the entire police system.

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