The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged the new Acting Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, to be professional in his job and not attempt to curry favour from the ruling party of incoming President, Muhammadu Buhari.
The APC also urged Arase to shun crass partisanship in the discharge of his duties.
The party’s comments were made via a statement released on Thursday, April 23, 2015, by by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed.
The statement reads:
“We
do not know the reason for the sack of the immediate past IGP, but we
have read, just like other Nigerians, that it might not be unconnected
with the role he either played or did not play in the last general
elections.”
“What we do know is that the police
force under the former IG was a major actor in the massive rigging and
violence that characterized the elections in some parts of the country,
especially in Rivers ,Akwa Ibom Sokoto and Gombe states just to mention a
few.”
“Now, Mr. Arase faces perhaps the biggest
test in his new capacity with the supplementary elections coming up in
Abia, Imo and Taraba. We do hope he will not allow the police under him
to be used to thwart the will of the people in those states or to give
cover to those who will engage in violence”
“Any
IG worth his salt does not need to pander to the President or the ruling
party in carrying out his duties. All he has to do is to make sure the
police carries out its statutory duties in accordance with the law and
without fear or favour.”
“When Mr. Arase’s
predecessor issued an illegal order directing Nigerians to vote and
immediately vacate polling units during the last elections, he knew he
was acting against what the law stipulates, but he chose to do so anyway
to please his masters. However, armed with the position of the law,
Nigerians simply ignored the illegal order, voted and stayed behind to
defend their votes.”
“When that unlawful order is
placed side-by-side with other acts that ran contrary to the maintenance
of law and order under the immediate past IG – including the cover
given to the OPC to wreak havoc in Lagos, the illegal withdrawal of the
security details of House of Representatives’ Speaker Aminu Tambuwal,
whom he (former IG) refused to recognize as Speaker in a clear
usurpation of the role of the judiciary, and the shameful role of the
police in the Osun Governorship election last year, during which
hundreds of APC members were arrested and detained without cause – one
will realize to what extent the police was dragged into partisan
politics under him.”
“But in the end, those for
whom the IG desecrated the police had no qualms about humiliating him
out of office. We hope Mr. Arase will learn a lesson from this, toe a
different path and not run the police like his private company and a
tool in the hands of unscrupulous politicians.”
Arase was appointed on Tuesday, April 21, after the sack of former IG, Suleiman Abba.
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