The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has blamed the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, for his contradictory statements and directives to the Nigerian Police soon after the October 20 Lekki Toll Gate violent attacks by a combined team of armed police and Nigerian Army, which, it said is the cause of looting of public and private properties nationwide.

The rights group said there is evidence of state collusion in the absence of any sort of effective and efficient policing which gave way to a general breakdown of law and order all around the country marked by massive invasions of warehouses by hungry and desperate Nigerians to loot storages of foodstuffs designated as COVID-19 Palliatives donated by the Organized Private Sector (OPS) to states across the country.

HURIWA demanded that IGP Adamu should be sacked forthwith for failing to prevent Nigerians from massively invading public and private properties in Cross Rivers, Lagos, Abia, Imo, Anambra, Kaduna, Edo, Plateau, Adamawa States to steal, destroy and burn down assets of certain politically exposed individuals including some who are just successful private entrepreneurs like Senator Ndoma Egba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, whose mansion in Calabar was invaded, looted and set ablaze by hoodlums who were not armed but who succeeded only because the IGP failed to command and control the operatives of the Nigeria Police to carry out their job even as the earlier order made by him withdrawing Police protection from VIPs was the tonic needed by these youthful hoodlums to loot and destroy public and private assets of Nigeria and Nigerians.

HURIWA said Sunday in a statement that the IGP has no legal reason to remain in office with the massive scale of attacks of public and private properties carried out by hoodlums who did not have to worry about the police since the police operatives were nowhere near the crime scenes.

HURIWA stated that he violated several sections of the Constitution by his gross dereliction of duty.

“We are miffed and shocked that the Nigerian Police Force through the IGP was not appropriately directed to act within the bounds of the law to stop the breakdown of Law and order all around the country.

“Rather, amidst the cacophony of looting of public and private properties, the IGP ordered the withdrawal of all police personnel attached to all VIPs across the nation with immediate effect. This order for withdrawal was contained in a Wireless Message sent virtually to Zonal AIGs and Command CPs with signal number DTO 210900/19/2020. The signal was copied to all Police formations in Lagos, Benin, Enugu, Makurdi, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Oshogbo, Sokoto, Umuahia, Abeokuta, Akure, Awka, Ibadan, Calabar, Kano, Yola, Asaba and Ebonyi, with the IGP warning that any Commander who violates this order will face the consequences,” HURIWA said.

The rights condemned this show of gross incompetence and/or compromise by the Inspector General of Police which can be gleaned from the order he gave for the withdrawal of police services at a critical time in the trajectory of Nigeria and at a time mobs were invading public and private properties and then when these massive scale of attacks of public and private properties had successfully been carried out then the Inspector General of Police gave another order for AIGs, CPs, others to reclaim public space, restore normalcy.

HURIWA said the National Assembly should investigate these contradictory orders from the police Chief just as the President if he is patriotic should sack the police IGP for these actions that led to the total breakdown of Law and order all around the country.

It observed: “The same Inspector-General of Police, who had ordered the withdrawal of police services to very important Nigerians which largely motivated mobs and hoodlums to invade facilities owned by them and the states of the Federation to loot and destroy these same properties and after the destructions have successfully been completed only for the Inspector General of Police to give order for his officers to begin what he calls immediate mobilisation of all police operational assets and resources to bring an end to the wanton violence, killings, looting and destruction of public and private property, to reclaim the public space from hoodlums masquerading as protesters in some parts of the country.”

HURIWA therefore called for the immediate sack of the IGP who it said has failed to provide effective leadership skills that would have prevented the total collapse of law and order in Nigeria, including the communal conflict in Fagba Lagos state between Hausa and Yoruba in which scores were killed and properties destroyed without the police intervening to bring these henious acts to an end except when community vigilantes and community elders mediated a truce.

“It is very clear that this IGP has only led this Nigeria Police Force to the cesspool of professional misconduct and gross indiscipline to the extent that the Police could not prevent mobs from invading public and private properties of Nigerians which largely was motivated by the absence of armed police operatives,” the group said.

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