How IG of Police, Ibrahim Idris, disobeyed Buhari’s order on Benue crisis

The Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris is yet to relocate to Benue State, in an apparent affront to President Muhammadu Buhari’s order last month.

In a directive issued on January 9, President Buhari asked the IGP, whom he appointed in June 2016, to move to Benue State to restore order and forestall further attacks on villagers by suspected herdsmen.

The President also emphasized in his January 25 letter to the Senate that he had “instructed the Inspector General of Police to relocate to Benue State” and “redeploy forces to the most sensitive areas.”

The order followed the January 1 killings of over 70 villagers in Logo and Guma Local Government Areas of the state, a development that sparked nationwide outrage and calls for a new approach to the killings linked to farmer-herdsmen crisis across central Nigeria.

The President asked Idris to focus on the farmers-herders attacks in Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa and Kaduna States. Each of these states has witnessed repeated attacks in recent weeks.

The IGP initially obeyed the President’s order and traveled to Makurdi, the state capital, on January 10, meeting with Governor Samuel Ortom on January 11.

But He spent only three days touring the state, including holding talks with Benue political and religious leaders and visiting camps of the internally displaced persons in Logo Local Government Area.

Subsequently, the IGP left the state for Nasarawa, drawing criticism from Benue residents that he was disobeying the President’s order by abandoning Benue, which is the epicenter of the deadly violence.

The IG later departed the state after about four days and returned to Abuja, where he has remained ever since.

Similarly, Police spokesperson Jimoh Moshood ignored repeated requests for comments on the matter.

However, the state governor – Samuel Ortom said; he understood why it was difficult for the Inspector-General to stay in Benue.

Governor Ortom said; Nigeria’s security challenges are enormous and the Inspector-General is only one man who could not be expected to concentrate in one part of the country.

“But we have the deputy inspector-general in charge of operations on the ground here”.

Consequently, President Buhari issued a similar order to the Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai in 2015, asking the military chief to relocate to Borno State, the epicenter of the Boko Haram onslaught. And Buratai has ever since remained at the theatre of operations since then. He only visits the Army headquarters in Abuja when necessary, for meetings or administrative tasks, but “most of the time, he’s in Maiduguri,” a military chief said.

However, Mike Ejiofor - a security analyst and a former director at the State Security Service, said there’s no rationale for the Inspector-General to remain in Benue or anywhere else in the crisis-ridden north-central.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable for him to remain there and leave all his administrative work at the headquarters”. Mr. Ejiofor said.

He added that; the DIG Operations that was kept in Benue is enough to coordinate the activities of police in the area, saying the relocation of military chiefs to Borno State had no significant impact on the overall success of military tactics against insurgents.

“I think we should be realistic” he added.

Several local government areas in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba States are still in crisis, with killings reported every now and then.

Thousands of residents are currently trapped in separate camps run by the government and private organizations in the three states.

According to the IGP, More than 660 members of the police special forces are currently manning 10 units in Benue and Nasarawa.

Source: premiumtimesng