Lagos — ON Wednesday, May 30th 2007, former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, was ordered to hand over his post to the "next most senior" Deputy Inspector General. From records, it became clear that Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo, the DIG in charge of Administration, was that person. But, by Friday that same week when Ehindero formally said goodbye to the Force, the formal instruction was that he should hand over to Mr. Mike Mbama Okiro, the DIG in charge of Operations.

This move ruffled quite a few feathers within the system. Some thought that the new regime of President Umar Yar'Adua, in making the decision, "bypassed an Igbo man" and gave the coveted position to someone from Rivers State. While some speculated that it was part of the administration's continued effort to woo the South South and encourage the cessation of violence in the Niger Delta, others felt that the new leaders were continuing former President Olusegun Obasanjo's perceived marginalisation of the South- East. Some even concluded that Obasanjo must have been behind the move.

LET me remark here that this mess was avoidable. Rather than ask Ehindero to hand over to the next senior officer, he should have been told to hand over to Okiro. Even though some people might still have grumbled that the bypass of Onovo was politically fishy, they would have recognised the President's prerogative of making such appointments. Past Heads of State had tended to appoint their tribesmen to key security positions, including the post of IGP. In fact, it was the vogue to ensure that the service chiefs and key administration officials were from the tribe or region of the Head of State, perhaps, because it gave them a sense of security.

Many top officers in the forces were often retired to give way to the anointed ones. Even Obasanjo made sure that all three Police IG's who served during the eight years of his regime were Yoruba, and retirements had to be conducted in 1999 to create room for this. When EFCC Chairman, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, was being touted as Ehindero's successor, the stage seemed set for another round of retirements of top cops. It is, therefore, pleasantly surprising that (at least so far) the new regime is toeing former President Shehu Shagari's line in giving the post to a competent policeman and not insisting that he must come from his geopolitical area. If this trend is continued in all areas of security and administration appoint-ments, people will no longer feel that their parts of the country are being kept out of the scheme of things.

It is important for us also to dispel the impression that Okiro getting it instead of Onovo amounts to the Igbo being bypassed. Even though some have speculated, in the past, that Okiro is Ijaw, the truth is that he is of Igbo stock.

He comes from Egbema, which was in the Ohaji/Egbema/Oguta Local Govern-ment Area of the old East Central State (ECS). When new states were created in 1976 by the government of General Murtala Mohammed, Egbema was part of the newly created Imo State. It was during the boundary adjustment exercise that followed that Egbema, an oil-producing area, was shifted into Rivers State, an action that some Igbo leaders, such as the late Chief Sam Mbakwe, felt was aimed at depleting Imo of its oil producing status.

Besides, Igbo-speaking people in Rivers and Delta are as Igbo as any other Igbo, just as Yoruba in Kogi and Kwara are Yoruba and Ijaw in Rivers and Delta are Ijaw. The boundaries that separate people are just artificial. Let people learn from the lessons of recent history. Former Rivers State Governor, Dr. Peter Odili, used to pride himself as a "Rivers man", as if Rivers State is a tribe. But, as soon as he embraced the presidential race and looked like a real prospect, some Ijaw leaders, such as Chief Edwin Clark, started telling the world that Odili is an Igbo man, and that the agitation for a South- South president of Nigeria was not meant for an Igbo man masquerading as South Southerner! So, Okiro remains the first Igbo man ever to be appointed as the Inspector General of Police, for whatever it is worth.

On a more serious note, it does not really matter where the Police IG comes from. That he comes from a tribe does not prevent him from doing the bidding of his appointers neither does it propel him to carry out an obvious ethnic agenda. In fact, the best person to be used against a tribe or religion is a member of that tribe or religion. All three IGP's under Obasanjo were Yoruba, and, yet, till date, the real killers of Chief Bola Ige are yet to be exposed.

WHAT we know about Okiro, from his exploits as the Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, is that he is a tough crime fighter who does his job without creating undue political mess. He put area boys and the Oodua People's Congress (OPC) in check in 1999 to 2001 without creating the impression that he was on an ethnic witch hunt. Okiro is also very media friendly, having come from the background of a student activist in his university days.

It is now left for him to show Nigerians the stuff he is made of. The way Okiro makes his bed as Police IG is the way he will lie down on it!