By Tonnie Iredia

While briefing me on my role as class prefect in my primary school several years ago, my class teacher left in my sub-consciousness, an unforgettable slogan-“First impressions matter”. On another occasion, it was my lot to recommend to my colleagues the career that would suit each of them. When it came to the turn of John, the tallest member of the class, I didn’t hesitate to ask him to join the police force because most policemen seen around in those days were usually similarly “lanky and hefty”.

Mr Solomon Arase Acting IGP

The teacher supported my position by confirming to John that first impressions matter. In later years, the slogan helped me in other areas. In broadcasting, an occupation I spent the better part of my career doing, it helped me to select great newscasters and programme presenters.

I realized that whereas the TV manager relied more on prolific reporters who can sniff the best news of the day, the public couldn’t bother who gathered the news; what mattered was how it was presented. Viewers are usually attracted to watching only good looking broadcasters. Anything else would put off a viewer making it obvious that the most important attribute of an ‘on-air’ broadcaster is his appearance; it is the first element a viewer sees in a telecast because first impressions matter. Many other businesses followed the same pattern.

I used to wonder why the Nigeria police as an institution does not believe in the efficacy of the slogan following the many policemen in our country that do not seem to have police presence with some of them getting to the very top. Why does our country have so many pot-bellied, short and stumpy policemen? Can such operatives radiate confidence in anyone let alone scare robbers and deviants? A few days back I saw at a check-point, in police uniform, Alex my former house-help who had to leave us because he was too lazy for any assignment.

Alex, a policeman? I wondered aloud. When I asked him why he joined such a demanding and risky job, his reply was: “Oga I just like their uniform”! The colleague that stood beside him looked so malnourished that I made up my mind to send a petition on what I saw to the police authorities. I was yet to do so, when Solomon Arase was named the new acting Inspector General of Police (IGP). I received the news with joy because the overwhelming charisma conveyed by his ‘police-appearance’ at the handing over ceremony of the force to him convinced me that we might after all have a real police soon bearing in mind that first impressions matter. Arise would project his types, I imagined

My confidence that all will be well was significantly raised by Arase’s assumption of duty speech in which he promised to “identify, isolate and deal decisively with deviants”. When related to his first major assignment, re-run elections in some states, the speech makes a lot of sense. First, it admits the poor performance by the police in the recently conducted general elections in Nigeria in which political thugs had a free day as if ours was an unpoliced nation.

Each time we are approaching an election in this country, the police would with fanfare announce how battle ready they are; yet ballot boxes are snatched with ease by hoodlums amidst other plethora of electoral malpractices in the presence of the police. Somehow, the hoodlums are never arrested and punished just as the police are never made to account for their collusion and or failure to prevent such ugly incidents. Whether or not Arase can make a difference is not as important as the bar he has set for the nation to assess the leadership of the police from now on. Our premise is that except IGPs are vicariously liable for the contributory negligence of the police, the spate of violence in public events like elections will not abate.

The immediate past IGP Suleiman Abba, was so patently partisan in favour of the ruling party for whatever consideration that it would have been immoral of him to chastise any materially-oriented policemen. How else can anyone explain the role he played in the famous siege on the House of Representatives, when Speaker Tambuwal defected from one party to the other? It was IGP Abba who decided that the man’s tenure as Speaker was over; he could neither wait for legislators who appointed the Speaker to remove him nor would he allow the judiciary to make any pronouncement before enforcing his police-made law.

Again, as if Abba wanted to take the nation back to the days of the ‘NPN Police’ he sought to drive away voters from the voting centres after voting by holding that such persons could be guilty of loitering! In earnest, the goal of Abba’s political disposition was inexplicable. Whatever made him to so act and for whatever reason he was sacked cannot interest any analyst considering that more than anything else, brazen impunity accounts for failed elections in Nigeria. Even Alex who is in the police only for love of uniform ought to be ashamed that notorious flash points like Rivers and Akwa Ibom repeated their unending gory tales at both the federal elections of March 28 and those of the states on April 11. Where was the police?

Thus, Arase has an obligation to act differently more so as every IGP in the last decade has always attracted his strategic thinking expertise serving as Principal Staff Officer to three former IGP’s – Tafa Balogun, Mike Okiro and Sunday Ehindero. He is therefore the real police coming into office with a rich background of intelligence gathering experience; the best term in policing best practices in this age of technology.

As Assistant IGP he was integrated into the police management team; as Deputy IGP, Arase was again left to head the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department. With a Bachelor’s degree in political science and law as well as a Masters in law and strategic studies, the nation could not have picked a better material than Arase for the job of IGP. But will he be allowed to work?