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On IGP's Wife's Threat On Beer Parlours

 I write to rebut the pathetic threat by the President of the Police Officers Wives’ Association and wife of the Inspector-General of Police, Hajia Hajara Usman Baba, to remove “beer parlours” in police barracks across the country.


“We are going to send signals immediately for the relocation of the ‘beer parlours’. If you don’t keep to it, you will be ejected out of the barracks,” she threatened recently. As a citizen of Nigeria, I feel somebody is trying to steal my rights hence, this write-up . How did we end up with a nation of power mongers?  To think the woman is not even a police officer makes it more disturbing. What power has she to arrogate such a function to herself? These are the same police officers who escort her, and other supposed VIPs around and she woke up one day to issue a diktat.

Police officers are adults who have passed 18 years of age. Why is it the business of the IG’s wife if I decide to ingest paraffin or a solution of cement with battery water? The barracks offer shelter for a wide variety of police officers no matter their faith. Nigeria, the last time I checked, remains a secular state and so are police barracks. A fish is boiled by the same water it likes to hide in and the same gun that shields, also kills.

Nigeria is the reason why Africa is stagnated and all other countries looking up to Nigeria will be disappointed. Within the Nigerian space, as soon an inch of space is granted, they seek to take over the whole universe.

Nigeria has long tottered on the precipice. Unable to keep the country and her citizens safe, a new Sherriff has emerged from the ashes of the Nigeria Police Force and her immediate task is to control the use and movement of alcohol in the barracks. Nigeria is not even a failed state but a fully failed state trailing behind Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Central African Republic and Myanmar. In fully failed states, a lot of power is arrogated to individuals who have the grasping skills of a toddler.

Why is the IG’s wife not worried about the endemic corruption crippling the police, the skewed recruitment and promotion and the poor welfare status of serving police officers? What of the poor police widows whose husbands died on the line of duty and are only remembered when it is time to eject them out of the barracks? How is what I drink in the barracks her business?

Why is she not telling me what to cook and eat and at what time I should retire to bed? The IG’s wife is enforcing a nonexistent law and by extension arrogating to herself powers that she does not have. It is disheartening that husband and wife are in the business of arrogating distant powers to themselves. The husband is new on the job, has just been confirmed after being on acting capacity but his recent pronouncements are nothing to write home about.

Due to lack of what to do, the IG’s wife has embarked on a tour of police barracks. No problems but she is no law enforcer and has no right to do that. Instead, she is arrogating to herself the power that she does not possess. There is no inheritance even though some people think otherwise. This Macbeth must have been longing for this opportunity and she grabbed it with both hands.

Look at the way police stations across the country are going up in flames and the rank and file mauled on a daily basis.

A bottle of beer or two taken by these anguished police officers at the end of the day to calm their fraying nerves has become a national issue? Methinks that Madam  Usman does not possess a faint understanding to engage in this type of business.

This threat sounds to me as absurd. Who do we blame this on?


Mr Mike Onwukwe, Juba, South Sudan


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