Who Will Call Mbu To order? – Thisday

Mr. Joseph Mbu, Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 7, Abuja was transferred from Rivers State to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) not long ago, apparently because of the controversies dogging his tenure as the state’s commissioner of police. Unfortunately, it would appear as if Mbu believes he is above the law as he recently ordered the detention of Mr. Amaechi Anakwue, a journalist with the African Independent Television (AIT), for reportedly describing him as “controversial” in a news report. This is impunity at its highest and a flagrant misuse of power by an officer whose duty ordinarily is to enforce the law.

All factors considered, it is our view that a man with Mbu’s predisposition has no place in the police force, especially in a democracy. The list of Mbu’s infractions is indeed long. As Rivers State Commissioner of Police, he violated the principle of subordination of the armed forces to elected civil authority thereby undermining a cardinal pillar of democratic order. In Rivers State also, he used the police to unconstitutionally overthrow constituted civil authority in a local government and forcibly occupied its offices for as long as he wished. As Abuja police boss, Mbu violated the rights of citizens to freedom of association and peaceful assembly over the Chibok girls abduction. Now he has illegally detained a journalist for simply doing his job. Who knows what he will do next: an outright seizure of power by the police in Abuja?

Unfortunately, those who should call Mbu to order seem to be looking the other way apparently because he serves other interests. But not all Nigerians are keeping quiet as many indeed are outraged by his activities. While sounding a “note of caution” to Mbu, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said his attitude to law enforcement gives him out as one that is more inclined to promoting “anarchy than the rule of law.” The statement added that Mbu does not seem to represent the mainstream 21st Century police if his “routine, primitive, partisan and primordial outbursts are anything to go by. He is a serial embarrassment to the Police Force that we need.”

According to the NLC, “freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to which we are all answerable in spite of our station in life. The arrest and detention of Anakwue is therefore a calculated attempt to muscle the press and free speech in a democracy. And it does not appear to be an isolated case as a few months earlier, this same Mbu violently broke up the Bring-Back-Our-Girls Campaign on the basis of a non-existent law, drawing international condemnation for the government.”

We totally agree with the submission of the NLC that Mbu has become the prime symbol and uniformed mascot of a season of unbridled impunity in the nation. Only in Nigeria is this level of authorised hooliganism sanctioned by the state in a purportedly democratic context. Yet  Mbu’s serial felonies go beyond accidental errors committed by a dedicated law officer in the line of legitimate duty.

What the public has been witnessing are the indiscretions of a police officer who finds it difficult to distance himself from opportunistic partisanship. Even more frightening is the fact that here is an officer whose duty should be majorly the protection of the sacred principles of democratic rights in a civil administration but who is more comfortable with frequent flirtations with autocratic high- handedness. The police authorities will sooner than later have to decide whether the essence of their work is the protection of democracy and the rights of law abiding Nigerians or the elevation of officers like Mbu who cannot resist the temptations of authoritarianism.