Prof. Wole Soyinka
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has
criticised the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2, Joseph
Mbu, for urging the police to kill 20 civilians for a policeman that is
killed before, during and after the general elections.
Mbu, on Thursday in Abeokuta, Ogun
State, had also ordered his men during his official visit to the
Eleweran Command headquarters, to arrest even the governor of the state
if they find him to be violating the law on election day.
“If one of my men is killed, I shall
kill twenty of them but don’t shoot first. If they shoot you, shoot back
in self-defence. Anybody who fires you, fire him back in self-defence.
Our actions and activities will go a long way to decide this election,
so, I have come to tell you that we must remain impartial in ensuring
free, fair, peaceful and violent-free polls.
“As far as the law is concerned, we are
not going to respect anybody and whoever is coming to the booth should
vote and leave peacefully. Anyone who comes there to campaign, even if
it is the chief executive of the state, a constable at that polling
booth would stop him,” Mbu said.
In a letter made available to our
correspondent on Saturday, Soyinka described Mbu as a “political jobber”
ready to be used by the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal
Government.
“Goliath Mbu is the latest kid in town,
fresh from his triumph in ‘taming’ governors all over the nation, and
reveling in his new elevation for jobs well done. A political jobber by
instinct though a clamberer through the police profession, he has wasted
no time instructing his men to return violence for violence, fire for
fire.
“He has been displaying his new attire
and pips all over the place, demanding to be noticed – as if his facial
snarl is not already plastered over the pages of media annals of police
infamy, reminiscent of the good old days of one Inspector-General
(Sunday) Adewusi, who would appear on television dripping with
gas-canisters and grenades, with a detachment of Kill-and-Go,” the Nobel
laureate stated.
According to Soyinka, Mbu’s actions and words are similar to that of Adewusi.
He said, “Is history about to repeat
itself in microcosm? Adewusi was sacked by the Buhari coup and vanished
from the police political rostrum.”
Soyinka also expressed his regrets and
anger over the failure of governments to punish persons like Adewusi for
his impunity rather he said, those who have acted with impunity were
usually accorded state recognition.
“This warped apportionment of deserving
it must be that drives such officials to treasonable conduct under
democracies. If the trend changes and even the police are made to
account for abuses of office, abuses of the collective rights of
citizens, then perhaps we might see the end of arrogant partisanship in
the performance of police duties,” he added.
In a related development, the All
Progressives Congress in a statement issued on Saturday, described Mbu
as a “lawless and barbaric” policeman who should urgently be called to
order by the police authorities.
“Since his posting to the Zone 2
Command, this contumacious policeman has exhibited an egregious act of
lawlessness by barging through the Lekki Toll Plaza without paying toll
and then ordering the arrest of policemen and workers at the Plaza. Is
it not an irony that a man who is trained to enforce the law is the same
who is breaking the law?” Said the APC publicity secretary, Mr. Lai
Mohammed.
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