By Danjuma Lamido
“What sets disciplined people apart? The capacity to get past distractions. Focus on the task at hand” – Bill Parcells
I have never come across the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Egbetokun, one-on-one before, but I have friends who are close to him.
From all I have heard from those friends, I think the Adeolu in his name should be replaced with Accountability.
I was not bothered when a roundtable on police reform and accountability held in Abuja on Tuesday by the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) accused IGP Egbetokun of financial misconduct involving budgetary allocations, suspicious contract awards, and questionable disposal of police assets.
I had to go through the figure again and again and said to myself, since Omoyele Sowore failed in his bid for the campaign of calumny tagged #EgbetokunMustGo, it is the turn of Ezenwa Nwagwu to take over the battle.
PAACA’s Executive Director, Ezenwa Nwagwu, said the organisation had submitted a petition to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), along with a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the police, seeking clarifications on the alleged misuse of funds under the current police leadership.
Nwagwu even went too far; he should have come to the Force Headquarters to see the Inspector-General of Police and seek clarification.
The so-called “whistleblowers and media outlets” alleging that the police under IGP Egbetokun mismanaged over N234 billion are the unscrupulous elements, recently retired police personnel who forged their age and years of service so as to remain in the office to attain the position of the Inspector-General of Police.
They were so daft that they thought they could use frivolous allegations to distract him, but Egbetokun will never be distracted.
How can this mischievous element say that Egbetokun “diverts N6 billion from the Police Internal Security Operations budget” when he has a management team and experts to scrutinise every kobo of the Nigeria Police Force?
What the unscrupulous elements forgot in their orchestrated evil plan was that the Inspector-General of Police has a limited approval threshold.
They even went to the extent of saying he “split the contract into 66 smaller contracts—all” to a single company, Messrs Crown Natures Nigeria Plc.
Every contract passes through the management team as well as the Bureau of Public Procurement.
Egbetokun has been very comfortable since his days as the Chief Security Officer to the then-Lagos State Governor, now President Bola Tinubu.
He is a man who is very careful in whatever he appends his signature on, and he reads very well. To link him with misappropriating police funds is the greatest falsehood that those baseless “whistleblowers and media outlets” could allege, but Egbetokun will surely clear their doubt.
As the Nigeria Police Force awaits the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) at the Force Headquarters to check the records, I will still call on the Inspector-General of Police never to slow down his reform for the Nigeria Police Force.
Egbetokun should see the unfounded allegations as a stepping stone to achieve the objective of President Bola Tinubu, which includes but is not limited to a Nigeria Police Force that is well-trained, well-motivated and well-equipped with modern tools and technology to effectively combat crime in Nigeria.
Danjuma Lamido writes from Kano State. danjumalamido2011@gmail.com
