WICKED PEOPLE

Some chaps are trying very hard to convince me that state governors have no control over  the Police and other security agencies. 

I just dey laugh. I know that even the wife of a governor or president can issue "commands" to our policemen and woman. We saw it happen in Rivers State. We saw it happen in 2003 when a man who did not hold any political office commanded the police in an attempt to unseat a sitting governor.

What am I even saying? Didn't we see how Diezani commanded the police? Or how a former First Lady was the de facto President when the husband fell ill? These are people who had no constitutional power over the Police. How much more an elected governor.

"That anyone would actually believe that a president, any president, would dilly dally while his citizens face imminent life-threatening danger is the height of what my friend Emeka Oparah calls "nincompoopism"   

In any case, even we ordinary people  have some measure of control over the police when we report a crime. By merely reporting a crime or an imminent crime to the police, they are obligated to act and can be brought to question should they refuse to act. This is crime between two persons oh; not to talk of an imminent attack on a whole community

We also know that a governor has control over officers and men of the NSCDC and their "ogas-on-Top" – afterall power pass power. 

The argument for state Police should not be used to twist facts. If it is true that state governors do not have control over the Police, then why do they need all those billions in security vote? Why do they have commissioners of police under them? Are we now saying a governor cannot control the police security detail attached to him? 

We know governors do not have control over the appointment of police officers but the truth is they do have control over their use. Attempting to claim otherwise is deception. The level some people are willing to go to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it is confounding 

Even more confounding is for some people to allege that President Buhari kept Enugu state governor holding on phone until the Ukpabi Nimbo attack had happened. So it does not occur to these people that the president has hot/emergency numbers on which he can be reached at any point in the time? Those emergency numbers are known to all state governors and they do not need permission from the president to call it in an emergency. Even "enemy" governors a'la Fayose have right to call it in an emergency. 

That anyone would actually believe that a president, any president, would dilly dally while his citizens face imminent life-threatening danger is the height of what my friend Emeka Oparah calls "nincompoopism"   

The attack on Ukpabi Nimbo was an unfortunate and condemnable incident, but cooking up stories and spreading ethnic hatred will neither  remedy the situation nor help anybody. We need one another in this country. What we should be doing is to pressurize the government to ensure that the killers are brought to book. They must be made to face the punishment for their crime. 

May the soul of those killed in that attack rest in peace; may those wounded receive healing and may the families of the deceased be comforted by the Almighty. 

Long live Nigeria.