Officials from the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, known by the acronym NOPRIN, has called on the police service commission (PSC) to exercise its statutory oversight, and invoke its disciplinary powers against Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu. He is the Commissioner for Police for the FCT, caught in a controversial move, his critics say, for subverting Nigeria's constitution, and infringing on the fundamental rights of Nigerians over freedom of expression.
Officials from the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, known by the acronym NOPRIN, has called on the police service commission (PSC) to exercise its statutory oversight, and invoke its disciplinary powers against Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu. He is the Commissioner for Police for the FCT, caught in a controversial move, his critics say, for subverting Nigeria's constitution, and infringing on the fundamental rights of Nigerians over freedom of expression.
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Mr. Mbu, his critics and those close to NOPRIN say, acted with malice, by purportedly banning protests by groups of citizens demanding that the federal government act swiftly to rescue over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by terrorists about 7 weeks ago. The protest ban, they say, is not only unconstitutional, but it is a call that can only be made by lawmakers, and is beyond his powers. Yet, say critics inside NOPRIN, Mbu acted “in utter contempt of a subsisting Appeals Court judgment upholding the inalienable constitutional rights of Nigerians to express their opinions through peaceful protests and demonstrations.”
A public NOPRIN statement issued to the media, and obtained by SaharaReporters, says that “it is shocking that this self-same Mbu, who perpetrated several acts of illegality, as Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, has been retained in the NPF and only redeployed as CP of the FCT where he has continued with his reckless and unprofessional acts which run contrary to all norms of democratic policing.”
NOPRIN’s statement commends the IGP for having disowned Mbu, and pointing out to him that it is beyond his powers to abridge the constitutional rights of Nigerians under any guise.
Critics of the Mbu call banning protest gatherings in the federal territory say that he “represents a rotten egg, and a bad influence to younger, and junior officers in the National Police Force, and should be done away with.”
The NOPRIN statement also calls on the PSC to, for once, “demonstrate some semblance of responsibility by dismissing Mbu for his numerous acts of misconduct, illegality and subversion” of the norms and practices of democratic policing.
The statement was written and signed by Okechukwu Nwanguma, NOPRIN’s National Coordinator. So far, there has been no response on the part of this fiery NOPRIN rebuke to the ban on protests inside the Federal Capital Territory.
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