Elder statesman Chief Edwin Clark has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointment of a former Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, as chairman, Board of Trustees, Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF).
Clark said the appointment is nepotistic because top positions of the fund were occupied by northerners in the same region where Abba is from.
The chairman of the Southern and Middlebelt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) also added that it smacks of betrayal considering that Abba was fired by Buhari’s successor, Goodluck Jonathan for betrayal in 2015 for heading to the airport to welcome newly elected President Muhammadu Buhari without approval.
Buhari appointed Abba as BoT chairman of NPTF on May 5.
Reacting in a statement yesterday, Clark said as much as Buhari has the prerogative of appointing those to serve in his administration, “in any heterogenous society, laws are put in place to ensure that all groups and facets, have a sense of belonging.”
He added; “It is quite disturbing that the same man who swore to uphold the laws of the land, is flagrantly breaching them.
“The previous secretary who resigned his post to contest gubernatorial election is also from Sokoto State, northern part of the country. One expected that if the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the police fund is from the northern part of the country, the secretary should come from the South and vice versa, because this is one of the ways of keeping Nigeria’s unity.”
Clark stated that many senior officers and about seven deputy inspectors general including Mike Zuokumor who hails from Bayelsa State as Jonathan, were forced to retire from service in order to make Abba IGP.
“So, we were shocked and disappointed to hear of the roles he played during the 2015 presidential elections which took place between 28th and 29th March, 2015, especially in Kano State, from where I got calls from prominent Nigerians informing me that the Inspector General of Police was fully involved in rigging the elections for Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who was also contesting the presidential elections, that he in fact, encouraged under age voting, and allowed voting to continue into the dark hours of the night.
“As someone with whom I close, I called him on the phone, and confronted him of all the allegations, but he denied everything. I reported the matter to President Goodluck Jonathan when I returned from my village Kiagbodo immediately after the elections.
“Further investigations confirmed all the reports we received to be true,” Clark added.
