IGP’s Continued Stay In Office Illegal – HURIWA

A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has said that the continued stay in office by the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, is illegal as he ought to have gone into retirement when he clocked 60 earlier in March.

In a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Tuesday, HURIWA said Baba’s stay in office after he had clocked 60 and 35 years in active service, was illegal and contravened the Police Service Commission rules and the Police Act 2020.

Recall that controversy had trailed the retirement of the IGP when the Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Dinggyadi, stated that by the Provision of the Police Act 2020, the IG of Police was supposed to have a four-year tenure since he was appointed by the President on April 6, 2021.

Although the IG had turned 60 on March 1, 2023, four days after the presidential election, Dingyadi had defended the continued stay of the police chief, stating that “the issue of IG going out during this election period does not arise.”

However, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said the current IGP was violating the law, the constitution and the public service rule by continually parading himself as the IGP, adding that the President, Major General Muhammad Buhari (retd.), was “promoting lawlessness and executive rascality,” by allowing his continued stay in office.

 “The illegal occupation of the office of IGP Usman Alkali Baba who ought to have retired from the Nigeria Police statutorily alongside his mates earlier in March, is really worrisome.

 “As a retired police officer who reached 60 years of age in line with a binding Public Service Rule which is not vitiated or voided by the Police Act of 2020, the man parading about as IGP is violating the law, the constitution and the public service rule and as the number one law enforcement authority.

 “It is thoroughly disgraceful for Nigeria as a nation that someone who ought to have retired is still being kept around as IGP under the nebulous interpretation of the Police Act which does not invalidate the Public Service Act. President Muhammadu Buhari is promoting lawlessness and executive rascality in letting the retired policeman still go about wearing uniform as the IGP.”