UNABLE TO SACK RINGIM, A LAME PRESIDENT MAKES LAME EXCUSES?

Icheoku says the current frustrations caused Nigerians by their linguine-spine President Good(BAD)luck Jonathan is likely to boil-over if not checked. Imagine the latest inexcusable-excuses on why the none performing Inspector General of Police Hafiz Ringim cannot be fired. How could an executive president with all the presidential powers he has be so circumspect and hamstrung about reliving an official of his government of his job, when such official's job performance at best could pass for mediocre. Nigerians are dying in their hundreds, being killed by Northern Nigerian Islamist Boko Haram terrorists and all the president is doing is considering mundane and petty factors for not firing an incompetent police chief who could not or has failed or even deliberately refused to arrest the security situation in the land? 

Please tell Icheoku this is not actually the reason why IGP Ringim has retained his job despite all odds and his glaring case of woeful none performance and shall go down in history as the wprst IG of police NIgeria ever had and under whose watch Nigerians were blown away the most by Boko Haram Northern Nigeria Islamic terrorists' bombs. According to one insider source, the president cannot or is afraid to fire the IGP because firing him "could create problems for him with the North?" Icheoku queries how about firing the IGP and replacing him with another Northerner; afterall there are several DIGs and AIGs of Northern Nigeria Islamic extraction to douse whatever feeling of exclusion the IGP Ringim's firing might foster? Further, whatever happened to the Nigerian state as one unified indivisible entity or was there not a time when all the security heads usually came from just the North; so what is wrong if all of them, provided they are competent and very professional, came from the south now? The only conclusion deducible from this misguided calculation is that the president is not getting any good advise from his advisers or at best is being told what he would only like to hear, but which definitely is not in the best interest of his administration or Nigeria at large. Icheoku asks, would those Boko Haram killed Northerners have preferred to have an IGP who shares their last name and Islamic faith or one who would have kept them alive by protecting them against those killer Islamic Boko Haram terrorists, irrespective of the geography that produced the IGP? 

It is, simply put, very mind-boggling indeed the type of mundane considerations which usually precede this particular Nigerian president's decisions. Icheoku states that such morbid fear of a section of the country or its people to the extent that it jeopardizes government action or decision making is very grave indeed and forebodes no Nigerian any good. Moreso such consideration or fear of a people or section of the country was however not extended to the South-East when the same President Jonathan unceremoniously relieved the former IGP Ogbonna Onovo of his duties. It is noteworthy to recall that due to the recurring kidnapping cases in Nigeria and just barely six months into office and before the program he had put in place to checkmate and tackle such criminality ever germinated nor took root, IGP Ogbonna Onovo was sacked without blinking the eyelids about the feeling of the people of his section of the country. But suddenly, the fear of very violent and irrational Northern mullahs have forced President Jonathan hands to put up with a none performing IGP, who has successfully dragged his incompetent government down into the cesspool of gross insecurity of lives and properties of millions of Nigerians? 

Also the alleged President Jonathan's decision to extend to IGP Ringim a "dignified exit" is unmerited and undeserving, the circumstance of his abysmal job performance considered. It is also pointy that such "dignified exit" consideration was never factored in when the previous IGP Onovo and Balogun were summarily removed from office? Atypical Nigerian double standard operating procedure, simply because those lunatics sharing Nigeria with the rest of other more sane human-beings s are more prone to irrational violence, Icheoku may ask? So the imperative or narrative seems to be the fear of Northern Nigerians is the beginning of governance in Aso Rock which shows that irrationality and violence pays; but what example is being set by this standards or are they the only one that can generate mayhem or they telegraphing to other more rational sections of the country on what gets result?

Finally the most laughable of all the argument made for the retention or allowing the incompetent mallam IGP Ringim to finish his term in March, while Boko Haram holds sway, killing and maiming hundreds of innocent hapless Nigerians as well as their properties, is that “you cannot just fire top officers of the IGP status when you are not very convinced and you don’t have hard facts to support your action; you must investigate such issues to arrive at decision?" Icheoku asks but what about Ogbonna Onovo or even Balogun; since both men were summarily fired without full investigation and conclusive evidence of their culpability established first through similar investigative panel? Icheoku berates this as one heck of a lame argument that flies in the face of history of previous hiring and firings of Nigerian IGPs as well as other top government officials. The then finance minister and now reappointed Finance Minister and alter ego minister Okonjo-Iwealla, was once fired while in a meeting on behalf of the country in New York and even the last Army Chief Dambazzu was summarily fired while on an official visit to New York? So whosoever brains this crap of an excuse is coming from deserves a brain-scan for early signs of amnesia as he or she seems to have forgotten the inglorious exits of past Nigerian top government officials including those of IGP status. 

Such a "fool and bait them" excuse make many decent Nigerians want to lose their minds and Icheoku hereby calls on the incompetent President Good(BAD)luck Jonathan to wake up and smell the coffee before he falls victim to the same conspirators bent on denying his government necessary wings or winds to soar. It is indeed very unfortunate, the circumstance of Nigeria; which have hounded its growth and still hounds it till today - different people wanting and desiring different things in life and varied means to get there. On a hindsight, Icheoku laments If only Dr Nnamdi Azikwe had obliged the Sarduana and let the North wait for their own independence whenever they were ready, may be Nigeria as epileptic as it is today would not have been sired. But going forward, any articulations on how to move Nigeria forward, must decisively deal with its present configuration question, as what is now, seems not to be working and at best struggling for oxygen like an emphysema patient. President Jonathan, just fire the damn IGP Ringim and NOW!