The unveiling of a purported signal sent to all Zonal Assistant Inspector Generals and State Commands’ Commissioners of Police to clamp down on ad hoc security organisations allegedly usurping the functions of the Police would have been taken on its surface value but for the unexplained reasons that such order has to be revealed by a man who himself could best be described as a security threat.
The unveiling of a purported signal sent to all Zonal Assistant Inspector Generals and State Commands’ Commissioners of Police to clamp down on ad hoc security organisations allegedly usurping the functions of the Police would have been taken on its surface value but for the unexplained reasons that such order has to be revealed by a man who himself could best be described as a security threat.
As reported, the Nigeria Police authorities are set to clampdown on the private security arrangement put in place in Rivers State where an Israeli security firm was contracted to protect the state governor and some other key government functionaries. The worry as expressed by the police was that the private security guards not only had assumed the functions and responsibilities of the police but also are carrying out their operations without approvals from relevant authorities.
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Is it not surprising that the private Israeli security arrangement that has been on ground in Rivers state Government House since the time of Dr. Peter Odili suddenly became a threat to the police operations around the Government House?
Good as the police intent sounded on the surface, it is very interesting that the police authourity is making the private security arrangement in Government House, Port Harcourt look as if Governor Amaechi went to Israel to bring Israeli government security agents to guard him because of his disagreement with the President and the old PDP. This is outrightly mischievous.
If the contention was that the Israeli organisation was operating illegally and without supervision, the question then is: Whose business was it to grant permit to private security guards like the one in question in Rivers state- the Inspector General of Police, Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp or the Office of the National Security Adviser?
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Curiously, the police decided to first publicize what was supposed to be a classified operation before any effort to confirm whether it was the Federal Government that gave permission to the Israeli security guards to provide security in Rivers State? If the federal government (Presidency) granted the operating permit to the Israeli security guards, should the Police High Command not be among the very few to know and wouldn’t they have first be sure of this before leaking their intent to clamp down on the Israelis? You see there is something not too straight in all these!
As reported in the media, “if it was the government that gave the approval, then, the Israeli agency would be made to operate under police supervision. But should the answer prove otherwise, members of the Israeli security company would be arrested and charged to court.”
Amaechi has severally raised alarm that his police protection unit has been depleted by Mbu and that he is exposed to attacks. But in response to the governor’s outcry, the Police in Port Harcourt has continued to insist that the governor has no reason to complain about police security because he has enough men to protect him.
According to the Rivers State Police spokesman Ahmad K. Mohammad, in a statement in Port Harcourt, 287 police officers and men are attached to Amaechi and the Government House on various shift duties before now.
The statement said 32 police escorts are attached to Amaechi’s convoy, 20 are attached each to his wife Dame Judith Amaechi and the Deputy Governor, Tele Ikuru. Also, the wife of the deputy governor, Mrs Ikuru moves with 12 police escorts. The SSG had five, the Chief of Staff also had five while a total of 109 policemen guard the State House front and back in alternate arrangement.
In addition, the police detachment to Amaechi and the Government House also has 18 men from the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) and 18 from the Swift Operation Squad (SOS). He said three Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) are stationed at the front and back gates of the Government House. Also, 10 men of the Anti-Bomb Squad and 10 State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) were part of the government’s security arrangements, but noted that the governor rejected the SIB personnel.
No doubt, there are so many grey areas in the Rivers state police story. It seems for whatever reasons that the police is not fully open in this matter.
First, at what point did the police know what they are now telling us that these Rivers state government officials, including Amaechi, his wife and the Chief of Staff, either have more than the number of police escorts that they are entitled to or are not even entitled to any? Would they have withdrawn or deplete the police escorts if there was no Presidency/Mbu-Amaechi disagreement?
Whether Amaechi tried to play politics with this police protection thing or not, the often very thin line between mischief and genuine intention that has come to characterize the relationship between Mbu and the Amaechi-led Rivers state government allows for below -the –surface interpretation of whatever action the police commissioner takes and the withdrawal of Amaechi’s police guards tilts heavily to the governors’ fears that there may be plans to unnecessarily expose him and his key officials to dangers or to just outrightly sustain the act of intimidating them until they succumb.
Why should the implementation of an order from the Inspector General of Police be Rivers-specific and you don’t want people to believe that the police is being used to witch-hunt perceived opponents of the President? If the police suddenly want to adhere strictly to the quoted circular, the Rivers state police commissioner is a wrong person to kick-start the operation knowing that such move would be suspicious because of the existing frosty relationship between the police and the state government.
Why is the police authourity not concerned about the battalions of policemen assigned to escort and protect even mechanics and ‘badly tattooed area boys’ that work as expatriates in the oil producing and servicing companies all over the Niger Delta? One single Shell, Agip or Halliburton white ‘clerk’ has three or four police pick-up vans attached to him as escort.
And if the police don’t know it, let me now put it to them that all the oil producing companies, oil service companies and major construction companies use private security guards recruited from across the world especially from their home countries with some even worse than what we have in Government House, Port Harcourt. So we wait for the police to first publish a comprehensive manifest of all these organization supposedly operating illegally and without supervision.
Why is it that it is the Police complaining about the Israeli private guards at Government House, Port Harcourt and not the State Security Service (SSS) who should actually be bothered by such presence? Those who know would agree that the issue of clamping down Amaechi’s Israeli private guards, to a great extent is a continued play out in the drama between the police and the State Security Service (SSS) in the Rivers state Internal Security Forum. And this borders on supremacy tussle and definition of assignments amongst the various security agencies worse between the State Security Service (SSS) and the Police.
Mbu at the early stage of his assignment to Amaechi’s case from Abuja had said: “One issue I have had with the governor is who chairs internal security meetings in the state. He (governor) said we should rotate it (between the police and SSS); but I said no, there is a letter from the National Security Adviser (NSA) on this. I told him if my predecessors did not do what was right, I won’t follow them. The Commissioner of Police is to chair the forum and assume responsibility to brief the governor.” Me I dey laugh o!
IFEANYI IZEZE, Abuja: [email protected]; 234-8033043009)
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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