By MMike Oboh
The Nigeria Police may be thrown into a constitutional crisis with the refusal of President Buhari to name a sucessor to take over the position of Inspector General of Police from Mohammed Adamu whose tenure expired today.
Sources within the Force Headquarters at Louis Edet House, Abuja have expressed dismay over the development noting that if the president have not found a suitable replacement he should extend the tenure of the incumbent so that the Air of uncertainty pervading the Force can be doused.
Some sources who spoke to Daybreak on conditions of anonymity said there would be constitutional crisis if the incumbent stayedt stayed beyond 12 am midnight. “a vacuum will be created because by virtue of the police Act which was signed into law by Mr president Adamu seizes to be the IGP having attained the statutory age of retirement” a source said.
The source decried a situation where the president makes simple task looks difficult by refusing to act at the appropriate time. ” We all knew IGP Adamu was due for retirement in February, this was sudden. The government by bow should know who the new candidate is an announce him immediately thus delay is uncalled for and is creating unnecessary tention in the Force”
However speaking this morning on Channels Television’s morning show: ‘Sunrise Daily’, Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu said he was not aware of the planned announcement of a new IG.
According to him, no date was slated for the announcement, insisting that there would be no vacuum in the leadership of the force.
“The President returns to Abuja on Tuesday from his trip. He should be on his desk by Wednesday. I don’t know when he will do this. One thing I can assure you is that in places sensitive like that, there is no vacuum that will subsist, so the system will take care of itself,”
Shehu dismissed insinuations from various quarters that the next appointment would be based on ethnicity.
He stated, “The President will rather have an Inspector-General of Police who will make you and I safer, protect life and property than one who is more pronounced by his tribal marks.”
