By Rotimi Fasan
THE job of appointing public officers in Nigeria is by no means an easy task. More often than not what comes into consideration are factors other than merit. A situation Goodluck Jonathan might have found himself in the man he finally settled upon to replace Afiz Ringim as the Inspector General of Police.

If the details coming out now (and it’s good they are) are anything to go by, the President could hardly have made a worse choice.

Which is the more reason why I said it is fit and proper that the information now making the rounds in the media on the IG-designate should be enough for the President to reconsider his choice. He definitely must have found himself between a rock and a hard place, practically, in casting around for the right replacement for Ringim. And in this  instance  it would appear that the necessity of geopolitical balancing rather than practical reason or merit has been the defining factor.

This is indeed a terrible choice for there is no wisdom in replacing a spoilt orange with a tainted apple. But first to the latest massacre of innocent Nigerians in Kano by Boko Haram. Last week’s attack was a gory harvest of deaths despite initial attempts by the authorities to play down the seriousness of the situation. Seven was the initial casualty figure they gave.

It would later rise incrementally from between twenty and thirty to more. But altogether less than fifty even when eye-witness reports from overstretched mortuaries indicated the terrible state of affairs. Latest report show that about five hundred Nigerians might have been mindlessly slaughtered in a country that lays claim to be being under law, order and rulers. A scandal if ever there was any. And what is the reason for all this?

The bare fact as we know it is that without any reason, real or apparent, and with neither purpose nor stated objective, Boko Haram killer squads went on a killing feast of genocidal dimensions,   hurling bombs indiscriminately at mainly state institutions and their representatives- the police, immigration, state security service and the prisons, without leaving out innocent bystanders and others in their homes and places of business.

Perhaps, only those on the ground or with relations and loved ones in the troubled areas could appreciate the gravity of the matter- of being a Nigerian under the daily threat of attacks by a mindless group.

I guess those talking of a dialogue with Boko Haram, a group that has no known agenda beyond its laundry list of the number of state institutions and ordinary Nigerians it plans to liquidate- mind you not in the pursuit of any civilised principle, since they are opposed to anything so elevating- I presume such pacifists may consider bringing back the dead on their policy of appeasement.

But Boko Haram slaughtered in their hundreds while still boasting of visiting more tales of horror on Nigerians. Surely the government has no clear or coordinated response. It has no plans to step up its game by way of intelligence gathering or crime prevention. All it does and which the President continues to mouth like a repeating clock are promises to ‘fish out’ perpetrators of the ‘dastardly act’.

Alas, in a country that has a National Assembly and supposedly functional judiciary! It was in a bid to provide a solution, ostensibly, to the menace of the breakdown in law and order that President Jonathan started casting around for a new IG, one not ignorant of what to do and, hopefully, not one of the unnamed Boko Haram sympathisers he claimed had infiltrated the top echelon of his government. That the President would settle for Mohammed Abubakar  is  evidence that our crying days might not be over.

Otherwise the President has one more trip to make to the market where he can find somebody with enough qualification to direct our police force. Which brings me back to the Acting IG. Now in his mid fifties, Abubakar’s main qualification seems to be his region of origin.

Apparently not wanting to incur the ire of the North where Ringim comes from, Jonathan decided in favour of another Northerner from that state that was going to be turned into a haven of zealots by a former crusading and moralising governor that would himself be mired in corruption accusations before and after he had left office- Yerima Sanni’s Zamfara. Abubakar’s records are as damning as they could come.

Indeed, if we are to go by facts already posted around the media and which neither the presidency nor the Police Service Commission has denied- going by these facts, Nigeria’s newly appointed IG ought to have been fired from the organisation he has now been invited to head since 2001 when, in the aftermath of the Jos crisis, a commission of inquiry headed by Justice Niki Tobi recommended he be dismissed should he resist official advice to retire from the force.

Considered a zealot of sorts in certain quarters given his alleged connection to Islamic militant group, it is baffling what he would do, if he could do anything at all, faced with Boko Haram. Would such a man inspire the confidence of Nigerians, including Muslims without the extremist ideology of his alleged Boko Haram-like affiliations? Abubakar also has some links with Zakari Biu, the man in whose hand a suspected Boko Haram terrorist from the same state as he escaped. With these kind of credentials could President Jonathan yet be wondering why his IG is not likely to perform well in his new role? Is this not another case of Jonathan sowing the wind?

How can he avoid reaping the whirlwind? Would somebody tell our President that he need not appoint a man with such questionable credentials as Abubakar if he must appoint a Northerner into the position of IG? Is  he the best available northerner? Perhaps, the President’s hands are tied. Perhaps, he has all these facts about Abubakar- and one would presume he does or the typical security check run on prospective public appointees is a nonstarter.

No, Nigeria cannot afford yet another gamble with its choice of IG and it is up to Jonathan to make that clear to whoever might be responsible for foisting someone like Abubakar on him. Let the President know that many , particularly some who contested the presidency against him, don’t think he has what its takes to rule Nigeria. With appointments like this , he  may be confirming such suspicion.

There is no shame in retreating now, accepting that this is another failure in ‘good thinking’. Yet it is pardonable. What would not be is putting Nigerians’ security under the control of someone of dubious credentials like the new landlord at Louise Edet House.