Ohanaeze Calls for Igbo IGP Appointment

The General Assembly of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to consider appointing an Igbo as the next Inspector-General of Police, IGP.

The president of the group, Onuorah Onyeachonam, made the call in a statement yesterday while reacting to the president’s appointment of new service chiefs on Tuesday.

The group noted that Buhari omitted Igbo from the appointments, urging him to appoint the most senior Igbo in the Force as IGP.
They also said the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu, is due for retirement on February 1, and three DIGs, 10 AIGs, are scheduled for retirement and are expected to go with the IGP.
According to the group: “There is no Igbo man among the newly appointed service chiefs. Those who claim that the newly appointed Chief of Defence Staff, Maj Gen Leo Irabor is an Igbo man should tell us if Irabor is an Igbo name,”

“As the Inspector General of Police is due for retirement and fast getting ready to exit the police apex position, we call on the APC- led Federal Government to consider an Igbo man for the position of the Inspector General of Police. If there is no Igbo man or woman qualified for the job of the IGP, promote the Igbo next in line in the Police Force to fit in.”

“As your Commission is likely aware, three DIGs and ten AIGs have reached retirement age and will statutorily retire with IGP Abubakar next Monday, February 1, 2021, having joined the Force with the outgoing IGP on February 1, 1986.

“The three retiring DIGs are DIG Baraya, DIG Ogbizi, and DIG Oyabade. The ten retiring Police AIGs are AIG Karma, AIG Larmode, AIG Mustapha, AIG Inakwu, AIG Mava, AIG Babajide, AIG Babas, AIG Amba, AIG Akpan, and AIG Adeoye.

“We, therefore, wish to bring to its attention and remind some of the outcries generated by the Commission’s last promotions on December 18, 2020.

“The outcries by the public, public interest groups and direct victims of the shoddy promotions range from the deliberate total exclusion of Igbo/Southeast officers from the rank of Police AIG and abysmal allocation of CP slots to the region as well as padding the lists of those made CPs, DCPs, and ACPs and unjust exclusion from the promotion lists of senior officers due for promotion especially those in the rank of ACP scheduled for promotion to the position of DCP having successfully undergone the mandatory Promotion Exams and Annual Performance Evaluation Reports (APERs).

“It is on account of the above that Intersociety is writing your Commission and calling on you to frontally, justly, and judiciously address Igbo exclusion and other glaring injustices thrown up in the last promotion exercise, which was greeted by widespread outcries and misgivings.

“The vacuum created by ten retiring AIGs is a golden opportunity for PSC to make amend. Already, fears are growing widely that there may be another round of promotion exercise outside the confines of regional balancing, merit, and seniority.

“We as a result of this attach for the perusal of your Commission and as a ‘working document’ our expert-opinion paper, released on December 29, 2020, findings made in the four-page investigative report which we feel is capable of frontally addressing the said injustices, if judiciously studied and acted upon by your Commission.

“The investigative findings had frowned at the total exclusion of Igbo/Southeast from the list of Police AIGs to the extent that out of the country’s 36 serving AIGs and 17 Police Zonal Commands, headed by same AIGs, no Igbo/Southeast is among them.

“In the rank of CPs, too, out of the country’s 119, only eight, instead of at least 19, are from Igbo/South-East and of the eight, only six have a minimum of one year-and-a-half to stay in the Force.

“It is, therefore , our firm demand that these glaring injustices highlighted above must be frontally and justly addressed. There is a need to capture the 17 ACPs left out in the December 18, 2020 promotions in the new promotions.”