The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) in Nigeria has described as illegal the reported extension of the tenure of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Usman Baba.
Nigeria’s Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Dingyadi, recently said that the IGP will not be retiring when he turns 60 years on 01 March, 2023, noting that Baba’s appointment was for a single tenure of four years.
President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Baba as IGP in April 2021. He replaced Mohammed Adamu who was on official assignment to Imo State at the time the appointment was announced.
Dingyadi, while responding to journalists on the expected retirement of Baba, said that the Police Act 2020 allows the IGP to serve a four-year tenure which cannot be interrupted by retirement age.
According to section seven, subsection six, of the Police Act 2020, the person appointed to the office of the Inspector-General of Police shall hold office for four years.
However, in a chat with Development Diaries, RULAAC’s Executive Director, Okechukwu Nwanguma, faulted President Buhari’s appointment of Baba in 2021 as he (Baba), at the time of his appointment, only had two years left to serve in the force.
‘He skipped the candidates who had up to four years in service, according to what the Police Act said, and picked this current IGP’, Nwanguma said.
‘This is what we have always seen with successive presidents; they would handpick whoever they want. There are cases where they have handpicked a commissioner of police and given them rapid promotion and then appointed them inspectors general of police, and these are usually for political motives’.
Nwanguma argued that the president did not consult with the police council as demanded by the Act before appointing the current IGP.
He noted that it is of concern to the CSO that the president’s reported decision to extend the tenure of the serving IGP, irrespective of what the Act says, is illegal.
‘He [Baba] is due to retire either by virtue of having attained the age of retirement or having reached the limit of the number of years of service which the Police Act made reference to’, Nwanguma added.
The RULAAC boss said that obeying the rule of law guarantees stability in the polity, hence the president violating the law is an action that should be frowned upon.
‘People talk about the need for stability but the greatest guarantee for stability is the rule of law, and because we know that the president has been notorious for violating the law, so even if it is for the purpose of the future, we need to point out that it is not correct that the president violates the law to perform any act’, he said.
Photo source: BBC
