And the only way we can do it is that the police survive on discipline and the only way we can achieve that and reposition the police is to follow the principles

Vanguard: Written by Simon Ebegbulem   

Friday, 09 January 2009

 *Says his promotion was deliberate subversion of the constitution
*NIPSS graduation arrest stage-managed

IT was not easy tracking the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), DIG Parry Osayande (rtd), for this interview. Whenever he is in Benin, he is busy playing golf and would not want to be disturbed. On several occasions he had turned down request for interviews because of his tight schedule. This super cop is widely respected because of his records in crime busting in this country, particularly when the then notorious gang of armed robbers led by one Lawrence Anini and Monday Osunbor were terrorsing the nation and Edo state in particular in the 80s. He was called in by the authorities of the Nigerian Police and he was able to fix them.

There is no doubt that he attained this height today due to hard work and commitment to the Nigeria Police. This reporter was however lucky late last December when a call was put through to him and he disclosed his destination and asked this reporter to come, but not for an interview, just a drink. When this reporter arrived the place, he was in the midst of his friends. The bar does not entertain younger people but the oldies.

Vanguard observed that apart from the Chairman himself and another man, the rest of at the bar were above 70 years. In his usual amiable way, he made sure that this reporter was comfortable before he descended on the press for their reportage of the dismissal of the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.

Suddenly he became passionate about the issue and asserted that “I learnt the boy worked under me some time ago but I do not even know him, so why will people be saying that he was being punished unjustly?

Your reports have been very sentimental and majority of the people who have been criticizing Ribudu’s dismissal are either ignorant of the law or they are being economical with the truth”. It was at this point that this reporter after spending close to an hour, found out that there was hope for the interview and then he (reporter) brought out his tape but he did not object and the interview began.

He insisted that Ridadu’s dismissal was done according to the law establishing the police and declared that Ribadu’s purported arrest on the day he graduated from the NIPSS was stage managed and blamed the press for failing to investigate the matter. He stressed that the Commission was not being used by anybody to fight Ribadu as is being speculated, declaring that “the day the President tried to interfere in my job I will resign”. He bared his mind on the Ribadu saga and his plans for the Nigerian police.  Excerpts:

A lot of Nigerians have condemned the dismissal of Ribadu from the police force, do you think PSC, which you are the chairman acted according to the law?

Let me tell you, it has been a problem for successive governments to put the police right in this country. Instead of setting the police right they were proliferating security organizations. They brought ICPC, EFCC. They brought EFCC, Road Safety and Civil Defense, killing the Nigerian Police, which is a criminal force, established by section 214 of the constitution, instead of reinforcing the police organization they were proliferated.

So, what are the tripods on which democracy can survive? It is the Nigerian Police, the Army and other forces including the civil service. But you allowed one to die. It is my mission to come and reposition the police so that it will be a friendly and effective police.

And the only way we can do it is that the police survive on discipline and the only way we can achieve that and reposition the police is to follow the principles. One, there must be fair play. Secondly, we must use the rules and regulations in the performance of policing. Thirdly, we will not allow any external force to come and dictate to us what happens in the police because we use rules and regulations to work. Find out, promotions, demotions or whatever shall be based on performance and seniority and this is what I am going to do because I got my mandate from the ultimate of the country and that is the constitution of Nigeria. It is a supreme law. Anybody that comes our way to interfere in our job we shall resist it.

Are you saying that due process was followed before his dismissal?

We followed the law to the letter and the law does not follow the line of sentiments and the lawyers know. Any criticisms so far on his dismissal are based on sentiment. The law does not follow that path. I use proper rules and regulations to arrive at my decision I have no regrets if I were to do it three thousand times I will do it the same way.

It is being rumoured that Ribadu is being punished because of his stand on the war against corruption?

They are arguing on a point of ignorance and it will be a calamity for Nigerians to listen to them. And never you make any public comment on any serious issue unless you are aware of the facts. Like the issue that he was arrested when he was graduating from NIPSS, all the papers wrote that he was whisked away, why did you not investigate that issue?

That thing was stage managed and Ribadu knows and you people are writing it. The Press people were there, why did they not get the picture while he was arrested? Who arrested him? And answer me Simon. I believe it was stage managed. I am a product of the National Institute; we do not do things like that in the National Institute.

It is the highest institute academically in the whole country. I am section 11, so I must have been there 19 years before Ribadu went there. We do not do that because it is a very well respected organization. I have three hundred and thirty seven thousand men in the police. We are the highest employer of labour in this country.

The operational hub of any organization is discipline. Because we take orders. The only exception to orders is that there is a rider: all orders and instructions must be obeyed to the letter. So if we allow indiscipline, what will be the fate of the police. This man you are talking about, was he the only person whose promotion was regularized?

They were one hundred and forty why should his matter be a serious issue. We are not talking of performance when he was chairman of EFCC. We are talking of his illegal promotion and I submit with due respect that by that promotion, which was done by Mr President then, who has no power to promote him, Ribadu became a beneficiary of an illegal act.

And that is the issue. If you save your money, you want to buy a car and somebody went and stole a car and you did not know that he stole the car and you have invested your money. The moment the owner of the car comes, you will surrender the car to him. So that was what happened in this case.

It is being said that the same people whom he fought against while fighting corruption are ones now trying to destroy him?

I have no business with that, I was not there. By the time he was fighting people with the EFCC I was not there, I was playing golf in Benin. What is my business? I was not even reading newspapers.

But was he given a fair hearing before he was dismissed?

I delegated the power to the IG to go and do preliminary investigation and then report to me because I did not want to be an investigator, and accuser and then a judge. So the IG made submissions after their investigation and on that we made our decision.

So if you talk of section 36 of the 1999 Constitution, where you are given a fair hearing and you threw away that opportunity, then you are barred forever from coming to say you were not given opportunity. He was given an opportunity to defend himself. Okiro reported to me that he did not show up when he was invited.

The impression people are having now is that his removal is a ploy to destroy the EFCC and it will dampen the moral of those who want to tackle corruption in the system?

So if you did a good job in the past for the country and later you became an armed robber, are you saying that you will not be treated like one because you have done good for the nation before? You see, I do not understand people’s argument. It is very childish, it is untenable.

We are not talking about what he did in the past, we are talking of what he did now. And I told you before that the law does not follow the path of sentiment. That somebody in a force of 337,000, he went on course, he did not report back to work. When he was posted he did not report to his duty post?

You were queried and you were asked to come and defend yourself and you refused.  So, what do you want me to do? Sit down and clap for you? Supposing the other police officers follow your example, then what will happen in Nigeria? The Nigeria police will collapse. Do you want it to collapse?

But when he was promoted illegally, why did the then IG not oppose it?

The person that has the mandate by the 1999 Constitution, section 153, is the Police Service Commission (PSC). And the PSC is also a creation of the 1999 Constitution and the 1999 Constitution is the supreme law of the land under which every other law must operate.

The PSC has the power to appoint, to discipline and to promotion every officer of the Nigeria police from the rank of constable to that of the Deputy Inspector General of Police excerpt that of the IG. And once that power is given to us, no other person no matter your rank or position, has the right to do any of those functions that have been apportioned to us. And I want to summit with due respect that he who has the power to appoint also has the power to disappoint.

But there was a Police Service Commission when Ribadu was promoted why did they not object to his promotion then, why now?

I am not here to judge them. But these promotions we are talking about now, the Commission tried to make input but they were turned down. It was after they left before the inauguration of our own Commission that the then IG minuted everything to Mr President who approved it. And I will tell you with due respect that the former President usurped the powers of the Police Service Commission and in actual fact, it was a deliberate subversion of the Constitution, which he swore to protect.

Are you saying that was an impeachable offence?

Definitely, if the people there were working. (Laughter).

But why did the leadership of the PSC then not complain about the irregularities?

They were side tracked. Go and ask Okeke, I was not there then. I have told you that they sidelined the PSC and went straight to the President who promoted Ribadu. All over the world have you ever heard the Prime Minister of Britain promoting anybody? There are rules and regulations and it must be followed. What was the interest in the promotion, if you want to promote somebody, why did you not follow the due process? These are questions some Nigerians have failed to ask, they just went criticizing and that is unfortunate.

Recently, you toured the country to assess police facilities, what was your observation?

As I said earlier, I have a mission to reposition the Nigerian Police. The PSC is the second Commission in 29 years because of the military interregnum. And during this period, the police normally has three bodies that have over sight functions on the Nigeria Police. One, the National Assembly, two, the Police Service Commission and three, the Police Council.

But when the military came to power all these bodies were suspended. And during this period, the Nigerian Police grew in various directions, uncontrolled and unplanned for. So what happened, it grew from a strength of about 16,000 to 377,000 and today the Nigerian Police is the largest single police organization in the whole world.

Secondly, the Nigerian Police through the Police Service Commission is the largest employer of Labour in the whole country. But all these years, when it was expanding and growing, there was no control. The National Assembly was suspended, including the Police Council, which is chaired by Mr President whose members are Governors of the federating states of the country.

Other members are the Chairman of the PSC and the IGP but they were all suspended. So what happened, the IG usurped the functions of the PSC. It is that quagmire that they are trying to extricate themselves from. Now that the PSC is in position, National Assembly is in position, what is the meaning of over sight functions. Let me educate you on that.

The word over sight is control, a call to account. For instance, the IG cannot just post a Commissioner to Edo State, without clearance from the PSC. That is the over sight function. It is not that we are trying to assume power for the sake of assuming power. We want to level out federal character, we want to make sure that the Commissioner of Police he is posting there is competent. If it is a Commissioner that have been involved in unlawful killings, then I will adjudge him not competent of leading a command. I will make him to work under people anywhere. These are the things we do, we do not just appoint people anyhow.

But policemen are still collecting money at road blocks, what are you doing to eradicate such unlawful acts?

Has it not gone down? It has gone down. The damage that was done to the police over a period of three decades, original damage and collateral damage, cannot be wiped out in a question of a year or two. It takes time but we are on track.

Police welfare.

Fortunately, this year, I was fortunate to be a member of the Commission headed by MD Yusuf, retired Inspector General of Police, who before you were born, in 1965, was already a Commissioner of Police in the defunct Northern Nigeria.

Then anybody who was somebody was in the Commission and I was lucky to have been there. People like Muhammadu Gambo, Ibrahim Kumasi, Kashim, Owe, Gama Dabi, Professor Tamuno, the only known author in this country in the history of Nigeria police. And our terms of reference by the present President, Musa Yar’Adua, was that we synchronize all the known report that have been written about how to reposition the police.

Name MD Yusuf report, I was a member, Gama Dabi report, I was a member and a second MD Yusuf report, again, I was a member. We have since submitted that report to Mr President and he set up a Committee to produce the white paper. One of the terms of reference is that we should examine other sources of funding the police. We have made our recommendations. The President
set up a team of technocrats to write the white paper. They have written it but if I tell you now, I do not want to be charged to court for disclosing official information. All I can assure you is that there is something on the pipeline for our policemen and they will smile soon.

But you remember that things have started happening now. Gama Dabi report, recommended a salary structure, which the present government led by President Yar’Adua implemented. The salary of a police constable use to be N8,000 a month, but he raised it to N28,000.

But there is still hope for more. You see one of the primary purpose of government is preservation of law and order. And in order to ensure that government does not fail in its responsibilities, government must support the police, which they are doing and we are happy about that.