What happened at the Police Service Commission, PSC, recently, is the moral equivalence of a coup-call it Coup de grace or what you will. The coup plotters knew what they wanted, and they went for it.
Like in other coups, the head of the place was important. There was no room for any resistance. Once the guillotine machine was switched on, in split seconds, the task was accomplished! Before anyone was fairly aware of what was happening, the Chairman, Retired Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Ehigiator Arase, was OUT; and a new Chairman, Retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Hashimu Argungu was IN.
Like in most other coups, no reason was offered for the action. When we started putting the pieces together, it soon became clear that Arase had been sacrificed on the altar of excellence.
There has been the age-long controversy between the office of the Inspector-General of Police and the PSC as to who has the responsibility to appoint Police Constables. This matter has just been settled at the Supreme Court, in favour of the PSC.
The no-nonsense man must go and be replaced with a man that can be pushed around. That’s the easy way of achieving what some have seen as a YORUBA AGENDA.
This episode casts a big question mark on the type of talent hunt that we have always ascribed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It easily lends itself to the belief that talent hunt can be classified into two broad categories – talent hunt for national development and talent hunt for personal aggrandizement.
In the first category, we remember our late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909 – 1987). He was the leader of Action Group, AG, and the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN of the First and Second Republics respectively. With his free education programme, he built the people that are, today, building the nations. His grand merit was that he appointed capable leaders without respect to favouritism, and political jobbery.
The second category is populated by mentors who support their mentees to go and plunder the treasury and bring the proceeds to them. We are reluctant to put President Tinubu in this category, even where our hypothesis is beginning to point in that direction. For instance, we have not forgotten the arm-twisting and the concomitant wranglings that characterized the tenures of Babatunde Raji Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode as governors of Lagos State, to the extent that the latter who was perceived as a high performer could not get a second term, despite all entreaties.
Juxtapose this on the raw deal which Arase has just received. This is a man who has been unceremoniously removed from his position after barely 15 months into a 4-year tenure, without any offence whatsoever.
It is instructive that the board of the PSC was not dissolved. Rather, Arase was picked up from the pack for this sordid treatment, qualifying his case for what the criminologists call Cruel and Inhuman punishment – the type of treatment reserved only for felons in more civilized climes.
This however, does not vitiate the fact that we have seen a few altruistic appointments that came under Tinubu’s watch.
In all this, you must look the role you want to play. Arase was a perfect fit for every role he has played; and he has now been removed in defiance to all rules of engagement, the Constitution and all the enabling laws!
Arase parades very intimidating credentials. We struggle here to highlight a few points which bespeak him as a man who has distinguished himself in several ways and is destined for history:
Solomon Ehigiator Arase, CFR, FDC, NPM, was born on June 21, 1956. A 1980 Political Science graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, he holds an LL.B degree from the University of Benin and LL.M from Lagos State University, specializing in Corporate Management and Finance Law. He is also a holder of master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Ibadan, a Fellow of Nigeria Defence College, (FDC), and a recipient of the National Police Medal (NPM). He has undertaken various management and training courses in various parts of the world.
He enlisted into the Nigeria Police in 1981 and has served in various departments of the Force, including Operations, Investigation, Administration and Intelligence. He was part of the Nigeria Police contingent to the United Nations Mission in Namibia, and he is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the International Bar Association (IBA) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). He is the current National Legal Adviser, Alumni Association of the National Defence College – Nigeria (AANDEC).
Solomon Arase is one man who has applied justice with universal equality to all manner of people.
He is a change agent and a master of innovations. We remember with nostalgia, his ground-breaking innovations in the Nigeria Police Force as IGP, which included but are not limited to: the Creation of the Police Complaint Response Unit (PCRU) – an online, real-time Police of Police that tracks any Police activity anywhere in Nigeria in minutes, on a complaint; the establishment of the Technical Intelligence Unit (TIU) , which is the precursor to the tracking of phones and laptops, as part of Police investigation activities in Nigeria; querying the investigation of commercial and contractual transactions; ensuring respect for fundamental human rights in Police Business; the establishment of the Gender Unit, et. al.
As Chairman of the Police Service Commission, he established the Complaint Monitoring Unit (CMU), which synergized with the Police Complaint Response Unit.
We present to you SOLOMON EHIGIATOR ARASE, a Quintessential Crime Buster; a most perfect manifestation of security craftsmanship, and an inspiration for our people; a man of stoic discipline, who administers justice with universal equality to all manner of people; an exponent of human kindness; one man who does good to humanity without counting the cost; a man destined to make history, yet whose humility belies the robustness of his attainment in life.
We present to you, a total embodiment of consensus welt polizei; one man who has a vision and mission to work with other patriotic Nigerians for the fulfilment of the Nigerian Dream, which holds tremendous promise for the prosperity, greatness and unity of this nation; a most perfect manifestation of humility, impervious tenacity in the service of this great nation and hope for a sustainable democratic polity in Nigeria. WE SALUTE YOU!
Our life is a gift from God. Our service to humanity is the rent we pay for being on earth. Arase has paid his dues, and he is paying his rent as at when due. But he is being short-changed on acknowledgment. We insist that the receipt he gets should be commensurate with the rent he pays.
An essay of this nature should end with a prediction. Arase may today be in a desert place, with some of his detractors basking in the euphoria of their new conquest. The weak must not be allowed to assume that the future is bleak and dismal. Providence has a way of reserving the best for last. For Arase, the best is yet to come!
Congratulations are in order here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan writes from Canada
