6 Weeks After, Ag. IGP Usman Alkali Baba’s Appointment Continues to Raise Dust

By Aliu Hassan

Six weeks after President Muhammed Buhari appointed the new acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba as announced by Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi, the Minister of Police Affairs, the dust is yet to settle on the matter.

Though Usman Alkali Baba has since April 6, 2021 replaced Mohammed Abubakar Adamu whose tenure had ended in February but got extended for 3 months, Nigerians especially the human rights community including activists, lawyers and other stakeholders continue to query the appointment for many reasons.

First, many Nigerians had criticised the appointment immediately after it was announced on the ground that it was yet another sensitive appointment given to a Northerner, further fueling apprehensions about alleged nepotistic imbalance in the split of security chief appointments in Nigeria between the South and the North regions.

As at May 21, 2021, available data shows that from a regional analysis of Nigeria’s security agency chiefs, including paramilitary and anti-graft, the North has 12 out of 16 (75%) while only 4 (25%) are headed by a Southerner.

A closer look reveals that the following 12 agencies are headed by a Northerner – NDLEA (Adamawa), EFCC (Kebbi), Federal Fire Service (Niger), Army (Kaduna), Navy (Kano), DSS (Kano), NIA (Katsina), Immigration (Jigawa), Customs (Bauchi), FRSC (Kwara), Civil Defence (Nassarawa), and Police (Yobe).

Agencies headed by Southerners are ICPC (Ondo), Correctional Services (Delta), Air Force (Osun) and Defence (Delta). This obvious slant continues to fuel agitations against perceived marginalization and domination of the security architecture in favour of one region of the nation against the other.


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https://theconscienceng.com/usman-alkali-baba-appointment-continues-to/

And only dust will it continue to raise, nothing more. Ndi mgbu.