Still waiting for the Tambuwal thugs -By Yemi Ajayi

It is over a month since the police, in a knee-jerk reaction, attributed their invasion of the National Assembly on November 20 to the need to protect law and order. In justifying the action, the police, through the Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu, an interim Assistant Commissioner of Police, said the law enforcement agency resorted to the blockade of the legislature based on an “intelligent report of a likely invasion of the House of Representatives by hoodlums and thugs.”

To convince the doubting Thomas of the nobility of their action, the police had promised to parade the seven suspected thugs that were part of the crowd with House of Representatives Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, when he arrived at the legislature for an emergency plenary session.

The blockade, which forced many lawmakers to jump fence in order to access the House chambers, was in continuation of the war of attrition between the House on one hand and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the presidency, on the other hand, following the defection of Tambuwal from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on October 28.

Given the drama that had trailed the defection, the nation was waiting with bated breath on how the emergency session of the House, summoned by the beleaguered speaker to consider President Goodluck Jonathan’s request for an extension of the state of emergency earlier imposed on Yobe, Adamawa and Borno States, would turn out.

Earlier, Tambuwal, in a master stroke, had announced his defection to the APC shortly after he had adjourned the House until December 3. His tactical manoeuvring had foreclosed any opportunity by PDP lawmakers to debate the issue.

The presidency and the ruling party went into a convulsion of anger. Although, all but the blind would have known that Tambuwal left PDP long time ago and his announcement was just a mere formality, the ruling party gave the impression that it never saw it coming. So, distraught PDP and presidency officials caught flat footed by Tambuwal’s defection, primed themselves for a revenge mission.

It was therefore no surprise that the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Suleiman Abba, a man who is available to do the dirty work of the ruling party, declared Tambuwal’s seat and office vacant. Abba, just overnight, declared himself the Chief Justice of Nigeria, or as a friend mischievously put it, the Chief Justice and Law Enforcer of PDP! Without any judicial pronouncement, the IG had announced the withdrawal of Tambuwal’s security aides on the flimsy excuse that he had lost his right to protection as the nation’s number fourth citizen with his defection.

To give a legal cloak to his action, the IG, in a statement early December, said: “In view of the recent defection by the Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), and having regard to the clear provision of Section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has redeployed its personnel attached to his office.”

The withdrawal of the speaker’s security aides was the first step in the war of attrition to force Tambuwal out of office because the PDP knew that it would be difficult for it to oust the speaker through the two legallysanctioned methods: impeachment by two-thirds of the 360 members of the House or getting the court to remove Tambuwal and to declare his seat vacant in line with Section 68 of the 1999 Constitution. The section prescribes that a lawmaker loses his seat, if he defects from the party on whose platform he was elected to another party; provided his defection was not as a result of crisis in his former party.

However, given the circumstances of Tambuwal’s emergence as speaker, in defiance of the PDP’s zoning policy that had ceded the post to the South- West, the party knew that it could not get lawmakers, including some of those who are its members, to impeach the speaker. The court process was not a bright idea either because the wheel of justice grinds slowly in Nigeria. As it has turned out so far, the case could drag on for months that in fact, Tambuwal would have finished his tenure as speaker before judgement could be delivered even by the court of first instance. It was against this backdrop that the presidency resorted to brute force to get Tambuwal out.

The game plan, executed by Abba, was to deny Tambuwal and his supporters access to the House while PDP members, including the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, who were given easy access, would sit and summarily impeach the speaker. However, their machination did not take cognisance of the counter plot by the Tambuwal group which had got wind of the plot.

What the police thought was going to be an easy assignment back fired with the determination of APC lawmakers and the speaker to defy the police cordon by forcing their way into the inner chamber of the House in billows of tear gas fume. Faced with public angst over the illegal invasion of the hallowed precinct of the legislature, the police resorted to gobbledegook to justify their action.

Taken up on the claim that Tambuwal was accompanied by a “motley crowd’, a euphemism for thugs, the police said seven suspected thugs were arrested on the day and promised to parade them later. However, over a month after the promise, the police are yet to parade even one of the “Tambuwal thugs”.

As events have turned out, with Tambuwal looking good to serve out his tenure, the only hope of Abba riding the storm of his infamy to save his face is that a nation legendary for its short attention span will forget about the incident and move on in the drudgery task of quotidian survival. But we should not allow Abba such a luxury.

Since he has failed to show remorse for his ill-advised invasion of the National Assembly, the onus is on him to show the public that he was on a legitimate mission to prevent a breakdown of law and order, as he had claimed, by making public the outcome of his investigation into the matter. The first step in doing this is to urgently parade the so-called seven thugs the police said they arrested. Ojukwu who addressed a press conference in Abuja to announce the arrest of the seven suspected thugs is no longer willing to talk more on the matter.

In response to an inquiry by New Telegraph on the state of the case, he had taciturnly said: “We are still investigating the matter.” Knowing the way the police work in such a delicate situation, it would be faster waiting for Godot than to wait for the police to conclude their so-called investigation into the matter.

It is the crass partisanship displayed by the police that made the International Crisis Group (ICG), an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict, to, in a report released last month, warn of dire consequences for Nigeria in the aftermath of the 2015 general election.

“The conduct of some senior police officers (such as Abba)…has raised fears that the agency could be manipulated to serve the PDP’s interests. Similarly, some actions and pronouncements by the Department of State Service (DSS) – Nigeria’s main domestic intelligence agency – have raised concerns about institutional bias. If these agencies act or are perceived to act in a partisan manner, they could undermine free and fair polls and heighten the risks of violence, particularly after the vote,” it said in the report.

As we approach the 2015 general election, the public needs to monitor Abba and the police he leads seriously as he has by his conduct shown that he is a malleable officer and he constitutes a present danger to the successful conduct of the election. Given his antecedent in Ekiti and Osun States, where policemen were used to harass opposition figures, he inspires no confidence in his ability to be impartial in the provision of security for all, irrespective of political affiliation.

An IG and other security chiefs, like Caesar’s wife, must not only be seen to be above board, but must inspire confidence in all stakeholders, especially in a crucial election year that Nigeria goes into from today.

Unfortunately, Abba has fallen short of this expectation.