Civil Rights Advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has blamed the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu for his contradictory statements and directives to the Nigerian Police, soon after the October 20, 2020 Lekki toll gate Lagos violent attacks.
The Rights group, said there is evidence of state collusion in the absence of any sort of effective and efficient policing which gave way to a general breakdown of law and order all around the Country, marked by massive invasions of warehouses by hungry and desperate Nigerians to loot storages of foodstuffs designated as COVID- 19 PALLIATIVES donated by the Organized Private Sector(OPS) to States across the Country.
HURIWA, in a statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, called for the sack of the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu, for failing to prevent Nigerians from massively invading public and private properties in Calabar, Cross Rivers State, Lagos State, Abia State, Imo State, Anambra State, Kaduna State, Edo State, Plateau State, Adamawa State, to steal, destroy and burn down assets of certain politically exposed individuals including some who are just successful private entrepreneurs.
He further noted that the hoodlums were not armed but succeeded only because the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu failed to command and control the operatives of the Nigeria Police to carry out their job, adding that the earlier order made by the IGP withdrawing Police protection from VIPs was the tonic needed by these youthful hoodlums to loot and destroy public and private assets of Nigeria and Nigerians.
In his words, “HURIWA is therefore calling for the immediate sack of the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu who has failed to provide effective leadership skills that would have prevented the total collapse of law and order in Nigeria including the communal conflict in Fagba Lagos state between HAUSA and YORUBA in which scores were killed and properties destroyed without the police intervening to bring these heinous acts to an end except when community vigilantes and community elders mediated a truce.
“It is very clear that this IGP has only led this Nigeria Police Force to the cesspool of professional misconduct and gross indiscipline to the extent that the Police could not prevent mobs from invading public and private properties of Nigerians which largely was motivated by the absence of armed police operatives”.
Furthermore, HURIWA noted that the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu violated section 214, subsections 1 to 5 of the Constitution by his gross dereliction of duty. “We are miffed and shocked that the Nigerian Police Force through the IGP was not appropriately directed to act within the bounds of the law to stop the breakdown of Law and order all around the Country. Rather amidst the cacophony of looting of public and private properties, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, ordered the withdrawal of all police personnel attached to all VIPs across the nation with immediate effect.
“This order for withdrawal was contained in a Wireless Message sent virtually to Zonal AIGs and Command CPs with signal number DTO 210900/19/2020.The signal was copied to all Police formations in Lagos, Benin, Enugu, Makurdi, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Oshogbo, Sokoto, Umuahia, Abeokuta, Akure, Awka, Ibadan, Calabar, Kano, Yola, Asaba and Ebonyi, with the IGP warning that any Commander who violates this order will face the consequences”, he said.
HURIWA further condemned what it termed ‘show of gross incompetence and/or compromise by the Inspector General of Police’ which it said, can be gleaned from the order he gave for the withdrawal of police services at a critical time in the trajectory of Nigeria and at a time mobs were invading public and private properties and then when these massive scale of attacks of public and private properties had successfully been carried out, then the Inspector General of Police gave another order for AIGs, CPs, others to reclaim public space, restore normalcy.
Onwubiko called on both the National Assembly to investigate these contradictory orders from the Police Chief, and President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the police IGP for these actions that led to the total breakdown of law and order all around the Country.
