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OPINION: Col. Umar, Tinubu And Sycophants

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By Suyi Ayodele

I read Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar’s advice to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Sunday, and I remembered a passage in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in the shape of a camel?

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Polonius: By th’mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.

Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.

Polonius: It is backt like a weasel.

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Hamlet: Or like a whale?

Polonius: Very like a whale. (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2).

Polonius is a Yes Man. All yes men are sycophants, power pleasers! We have them in abundance in Nigeria.

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Elizabethan Literature (1558-1603) remains the best one can read. My personal assessment though. One of the figures of that era, and easily the most popular, is William Shakespeare. The excerpt from one of his plays, Hamlet, produced above, speaks to one of the maladies confronting and confounding us as a nation

Read the exchange between King Hamlet and Polonius above. Can you also see it as a classic masterclass in stupid opportunism? Hamlet toys with Polonius. He points out a cloud and says it looks like a Camel. Polonius says Yes, it truly looks like a Camel. King Hamlet says it is no longer Camel but Weasel; Polonius says Yes, it is Weasel. The king changes the next minute and suggests to the fool that what he sees is no longer Weasel but a Whale, shameless Polonius agrees again that it is Whale.

The people ruling President Bola Tinubu today are Polonius. Because of what they will eat, they bend, twist, and reshape their convictions to please the king. All because of their belle. We call them Ìfunlòràn (stomach matters) They are the ones Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (Rtd), whom I choose to call Dangiwa in this piece, warned Tinubu to run away from in his statement issued Sunday night. There are enough people willing to agree with the president that Dog is Monkey if it will give them access to money and position. And he loves them.

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Around the president, principles are as fluid as cloud shapes. As we see in Hamlet, the circus in Abuja tells us as much about the leader as it does about his chosen men and women.

A man’s name speaks for him. When he was born, his parents named him Dangiwa. Did his parents consult the oracles before his birth? Were there predictions of how the unborn child would fare in life?

I ask these questions given the ancient practice of my Yoruba background which seeks to find out what the future holds for the unborn child or the one in his cradle. My cultural worldview attaches importance to names; a name is not just given for the sake of it.

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So, when he was given the name, Dangiwa, what were the parents thinking? Dangiwa, a Hausa name means “One who is strong and brave.”  That boy that was named Dangiwa at his birth on September 21, 1949, is now 75 years old. When it was time for him to choose a career, he went for the one only the brave could venture into. He joined the Nigerian Army in 1967 and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in 1972. He rose to the rank of a Colonel and voluntarily retired in 1993.

In the Nigerian Army, Dangiwa was a brave soldier. He was equally a gentleman. When his mentor and boss, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB, (Rtd) annulled the June 12, 1993, presidential election, then presumably, but now confirmed, won by late Aare Ona Kankanfo, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, the presidential candidate of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), Dangiwa, though a serving military officer, said no to the annulment. He defied the regimental sentiments of his profession and went for his personal convictions on what is just, fair, equitable and for the common good. Only the strong can do that; only the brave can take such a risk. Dangiwa did because he must answer his name!

For that audacity, Dangiwa was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, detained and finally let off the hook. Upon his release, the soldier took another bold step. He voluntarily resigned his commission. He had seen all he wanted to see in the Army. He was convinced beyond any persuasion that the military erred in not keeping faith with its promises. Dangiwa would not be part of such an arrangement, so he opted out of the system.

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That is the trait of strong men; that is what the brave do. If you cannot join them, quit the game! That is the definition of honour, that is the connotation of integrity. Those virtues are reserved for real men of character. But like the proverbial Okaka, the bird which curses with its mouth oozing blood, but insists that whichever it holds unto will come to pass (Òkàká únseé pè, enu è únsèè jè, ó ní èyí tí òhun wí, arò á rò mo), Dangiwa retired into the life of a social critic.

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He never let go of his conviction about the June 12, 1993, political mishap. He insisted that MKO won the election and should be allowed to rule. Even when MKO died in suspicious circumstances while in the custody of the military, Dangiwa never stopped condemning the injustice. He was convinced that MKO, would one day, be accorded his rightful place in history. He was strong in his faith and brave in his outcry against the malady of June 12, 1993. In doing all that, Dangiwa never sought personal recognition. He is a study in self-conviction. And self-conviction, I dare say, is the hallmark of brave men.

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Men of honour are not in short supply in Nigeria. I also say this with a deep sense of personal conviction: men of integrity are not totally in extinction here. I know one of them. His name is Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, a retired Colonel and now a farmer in Kaduna State. The problem we have in Nigeria, especially with the locusts in power at the moment from top to bottom, is that we have allowed the dregs of humanity to take over our affairs.

Dangiwa has lived up to his name. His parents (God repose their souls), wherever they are, should be proud of him. At 75 years old, his children and relatives alike should raise their heads high that they have a man like him as their Okaigbe (head of the family). Dangiwa answered his name again last Sunday as he penned that statement as his response on the National Honour President Tinubu conferred on him and other heroes and heroines of the June 12, 1993, struggle.

The retired soldier accepted the honour. But he would not do it like the other honourees are wont to. He knew that he was not alone in the struggle for the actualisation of June 12 in the military. He had subordinates who also joined him in the crusade. Though he happened to be the loudest voice in that regard, he knew that he shared the platforms with some other brave officers. If the risk was a shared risk, the honour, he reasoned, and rightly too, must also be shared.

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Dangiwa’s decision to list all the officers and gentlemen who collaborated with him in the military to ask for the de-annulment of the June 12, 1993, election, is something I can relate to. Anyone who has ever worked with a boss who takes credit for a team’s success will appreciate what Dangiwa did. I was once in that category for almost two decades of my working career. So, I can feel how it is for a boss to recognise one’s contribution to teamwork and appreciate the same. That is exactly what Dangiwa has done by naming those officers who also took the risk in supporting the de-annulment of the election.

What Dangiwa did in his piece entitled “MY CFR NATIONAL HONOURS AWARD” is what my Yoruba people will describe as enìkan kìí jé àwádé (no single individual answers ‘we-have-come’). Those officers mentioned might not have gotten their awards or may never get any award or recognition from the Nigerian State for the roles they played, posterity will, however, be kind to them.

Their names are forever engraved in our subconscious because a man of strong goodwill and brave disposition decided to share the honour with them. They therefore remain Commanders of the Federal Republic (CFR) in our minds like the amiable Dangiwa whom President Tinubu has chosen to recognise deservedly!

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MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The Powerful Man And His Faeces

But the gist here is not that the retired Colonel named his fellow officers in the struggle. The main thrust of today’s piece is the boldness with which Dangiwa decided to point out to President Tinubu, the ailment that is afflicting his government. Only the brave will choose the occasion of the conferment of a National Awards to tell the ‘awarder’ of honours himself the basic truth of life!

In accepting the CFR, Dangiwa noted that the award would be “more meaningful if the democracy we all fought for delivers the real dividends. This can happen only if leaders at all levels govern with the fear of God and in accordance with the tenets of democracy….” That is a loaded message. President Tinubu must get it clearly: the masses are yet to enjoy any dividend of democracy! That is not a good one; the President must know. He did not stop there.

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The retired officer advised that “to achieve the stability and progress of our democracy, leaders must prioritise good governance over politicking for self aggrandizement’ and canvassed for the de-strangulation of the “three co-equal branches of government”, which he said, “must operate independently while cooperating with each other.”

Then, he delivered the killer punch. President Tinubu, he submitted, “must lead in a war against sycophancy in all its forms.” He advanced reasons for that submission to wit: “This must allow for no exceptions including the rapidly growing trend of naming and renaming public institutions, facilities and other infrastructure after a President or State Governor while in office.”

And in full confirmation of his name as “One who is strong and brave”, Dangiwa decided to name the chief-sycophant-in-power as Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President, whom he said, “was reported to have predicted that President Bola Tinubu will win the 2027 election with 99.9% of the votes!” He capped the piece by saying that Akpabio’s penchant for “humorous incitement” notwithstanding, “Mr President will do well to shun such oracles.”

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I read Dangiwa’s piece several times. On each occasion, I prayed that God would give President Tinubu ‘the listening ears’ and ‘the discerning mind’ to hear and heed what ‘the spirit is telling his Church’! All the noise about 2027 is because this administration, more than any before it, has promoted sycophancy to State art and act! Like Dangiwa said, “Men of straw are widely and falsely being elevated to the position of icons by self seeking sycophants” in this government. This is why all the President has done ‘successfully’ in the last two years is to weaken all the structures that could stand in his way in 2027.

What suffers in such a situation, I mean the real victims of that charade, is the welfare of the common man. Poverty, hunger, pain and anger walk on all fours today because the ‘men of straw’ that this administration has elevated to positions of authority, have formed the government’s clappers’ club to hail the President as the most ‘successful’ one when his failings and failures stare us boldly in the face. That is exactly what sycophancy does!

Sinan Ibagune in his “Political Philosophy of Sycophancy and Sycophantism” (Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey), says sycophancy is “Insincere flattery given to gain an advantage from a superior. The philosophy of sycophancy, particularly in the context of politics, involves the practice of sociable and ingratiating oneself to those in power to gain favour, influence or advancement.”

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Back home in Nigeria, Hyginus Banko Okibe of the Department of Political Science, Enugu State University of Technology, Enugu, while writing on “Sycophancy and Dearth of Integrity in Governance” (ESUT Journal of Social Science, 5 (2), November 3, 2020), says: “Sycophancy in governance occurs when performance of legitimate functions of government are erroneously exaggerated to invoke unwarranted stream of praises on a public officeholder or government in power. Critical observers describe it as deceitful, misleading and highly opinionated. It beguiles the masses to believe failed government actions, which a sycophant paints in different colours and thus makes governance wane significantly in integrity. It has become a predominant feature of democratic governance in Nigeria…”

These definitions above, among many others, speak to the malady Dangiwa counselled President Tinubu to avoid. If I were the President, I would look at the sincerity of the man who uttered those words. I would also consider his antecedents in and out of power. President Tinubu should study the identikit of Dangiwa, vis-a-vis the closeness of the retired military officer to General IBB, the man who annulled June 12.  A man who could question the actions of his boss despite being in a regimented environment like the Nigerian Army, is one man whose advice a president who wants to do well in office should not take lightly.

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Like Dangiwa pointed out in his acceptance article, “One enduring lesson from the conduct of the officers and men is their decision to operate above sycophancy but to hold their superior officers to account.” These, to me, are the type of men President Tinubu should have around him. He has had enough of yes-men, government clappers and the hosanna orchestra. This is the time to get serious with governance, and assemble around his table, men and women who have the capacity, the strong will and the bravery to look the President directly in the face and say, “Sir, the masses are suffering.”

Only the enemy will tell Tinubu that he has the majority in his support with the present situation in town. Only Polonius, a fake “oracle” will assure the President of “99.9%” of our votes come 2027. That is 99.9% sycophancy! The majority are silent today because they have limited options. It will be a different ballgame on election day when the options will be opened to the people.

Okibe is apt in his description of the negative effects of sycophancy. President Tinubu has been a victim of men who paint “failed government actions in different colours.” This is why his government has waned “significantly in integrity.” The president must rescue himself from the grips of the sycophants around him, if only for the sake of those who reposed their confidence in him, and the suffering masses of Nigeria.

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My hearty congratulations to Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (Rtd) on the conferment of the National Award of CFR on him!

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Retired DIG Parry Osayande is dead

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Retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Parry Osayande is dead!

Osayende died on Sunday in Benin City, a day to his 89th birth anniversary.

His death was confirmed in a condolence statement released by the president of the Immaculate Conception College Old Boys’ Association (ICCOBA), Engr. Ighodalo Edetanlen.

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The announcement, made on behalf of the association’s National Executive Committee, described Osayande as an “exemplary old boy” of the college, located in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

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The statement, titled ‘CONDOLENCE: DIG. PARRY OSAYANDE (Rtd),’ reads: “The President, ICCOBA Worldwide, Engr. Ighodalo Edetanlen, on behalf of the National Executive Committee and the entire Old Boys of Immaculate Conception College, Benin City announce, with total submission to the will of God, the peaceful repose of an exemplary old boy, DIG Parry Benjamin Osemwegie Osayande (Rtd) earlier today at the age of 88 years.”

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Born on September 29, 1936, Osayande would have turned 89 on Monday.

His decades-long service to the Nigeria Police Force included high-level postings as Commissioner of Police in Benue and Cross River States. He also served as Chairman of the Police Service Commission, playing a vital role in the country’s law enforcement and administrative reform.

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The association expressed deep sorrow over his passing and called for prayers for the bereaved family.

“While we mourn, let us also uphold the family he left behind in prayers in this moment of grief,” the statement added.

“Details regarding funeral arrangements are expected to be announced in due course.

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“May God grant him and all the faithful departed eternal rest in Jesus Name, Amen,” the statement concluded,

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OPINION: The Madman Sermon On Mapo Hill

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By Festus Adedayo

Ibadan, Oyo State, the city of warriors, quaked last Friday. The rumbling vibrations of the historic coronation of Ex-Governor Rashidi Ladoja as Olubadan sent valleys into a seismic shake. Ibadan’s ancient event center, Mapo Hall, was nearly submerged with excited feet. Children of Oluyole were at the zenith of their excitement. Expensive automobiles, resplendent attires and infectious joy lit the faces of a people who christened self as cunning. That Friday, however, Ibadan wasn’t ready to listen to the rhythm of its famous Láyípo christening. It was rather ready to receive the world.

Suddenly, a huge blot appeared on the landscape. In the eyes of the world, àjàò, the animal called sloth, suddenly crept up the hill of Mapo. When àjàò creeps up an event like this, it is a moment of anomaly, anomie or dystopia. Yoruba then speak in dispraise of this unusually created amoebic-shaped animal. They say, Kinní kan ba àjàò jé̩, apá rẹ gùn ju itan lọ – the only blot in àjàò’s creation is that its arms are disproportionately longer than the legs.

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Many have questioned àjàò’s mis-taxonomy, especially one that equated it with the sloth. To them, àjàò is not a sloth but a flying squirrel. In terms of features, both sloth and flying squirrel strike a resemblance with the Yoruba àjàò, in that they possess disproportionate arms and legs. Apart from these features, the sloth is also the world’s slowest mammal. Flying squirrel, however, is a gliding mammal which is more of a squirrel than any other mammal. Unless àjàò is today extinct, both equivalents it shares features with – sloth and flying squirrel – do not belong to the African habitat. While the sloth’s habitat is the tropical rainforest of Central and South America, the flying squirrel lives in North America, Northern Eurasia, and the temperate, tropical forests of India and Asia. Features-wise, àjàò however slants more towards the sloth.

Sorry, I digressed. On Friday, àjàò appeared in Mapo. It came in the form of the official musician of the coronation event, Taiye Akande Adebisi, famously known as Taiye Currency. Many felt that, even if the need was to Ibadan-ise the Olubadan coronation, for a city which parades A-list musical wizards like Saheed Osupa, Currency was not apropos for an event of that high-octane magnitude. They felt justified when, perhaps seized by an unknown muse of Apollo, Greek mythology’s central deity and embodiment of the spirit of music, Taiye Currency suddenly and seemingly veered off-theme and sang, “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” – madness is the curative medicine for insanity.

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Instantly, the musician courted huge flak of his audience for this perceived off-key musical line. The crowd felt nostalgia for Awurebe exponent, Alhaji Dauda Akanni Adeeyo, popularly known as Epo Akara. Epo’s evergreen tributes to Oba Daniel Adebiyi and Gbadamosi Akanbi Adebimpe, the latter being the 35th Olubadan of Ibadan, who reigned briefly from February 1976 until his death in July 1977, are still considered classics. A typical song sang at political rallies where call for the Mosaic an-eye-for-an-eye is often rife, “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” was seen as an anti-climax among Ibadan people who, for once, forgot political schisms and were united in celebrating their new king.

Unbeknown to the crowd, Taiye Currency was indeed right and deserves our praises. While madness is of a truth cure for madness, on the converse, on that Friday, could the musician have been lost in the mire of the literary device of dramatic irony? In dramatic irony, though the character in the story is oblivious of the situation he plays a vital role in, the audience is aware of it. It then leads to a gap or contrast between what the audience knows and what the character understands. While all of us as audience saw contradictory meanings in Currency’s “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” and the theme of the coronation event, the musician might be communicating a deeper sense of humour and existential tragedy.

Talking specifics now, could Taiye Currency, by that song at Mapo, be espousing the Madman Theory?

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Indigenous psychiatrists who specialise in treatment of lunatics and allied mental ailments pioneered this “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” phrase. The earliest theories on madness believed it was a spiritual affliction. The assumption was that its victims had their minds possessed by an alien deity. While many also believed madness was hereditary, others believed it was a punishment from the gods, resulting from a gross disregard of the gods’ warning. Then came Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.) and the theories of madness shifted to the belief that most bodily illnesses were as a result of various imbalances in the body. Even with this, madness, abnormalities of behaviour and epilepsy were still generally believed to be the workings of the gods.

It is generally believed that, since insanity is a hardcore ailment, its treatment is also hardcore. I witnessed this in the early 1980s when I followed my late father to hire farmhands from the indigenous sanatorium of Baba Aladokun of Ikirun, now Osun State. I saw mentally challenged men and women wickedly shellacked with whips.

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In Yoruba’s main translation of the word, “madness” or “madman” is synonymous with wèrè. The logic of the Madman theory in national leadership was first articulated by Daniel Ellsberg in 1959, followed by Thomas Schelling, in 1960. It is a political theory usually attributed to American President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy. It is derived from Niccolo Machiavelli’s 1517 book, Discourses on Livy and its argument that sometimes, it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness”. Similarly, in his 1962 book, Thinking About the Unthinkable, Herman Kahn, the futurist, argued that to “look a little crazy” could be an effective way of making an adversary stand down from their attack plans.

It worked for Nixon because leaders of hostile communist bloc countries, having assimilated this tendency of the American president as irrational and volatile, avoided provoking the U.S., their fear being of an unpredictable response from Nixon. Another believer in the Madman Theory is President Donald Trump, whose irrationality has attracted renewed interest in the Madman Theory among scholars, lay scholars and the public. Other leaders in recent history associated with the madman theory reputation included Kim Jong-un, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladimir Putin, Muammar Ghadaffi and Saddam Hussein.

Last Friday in Ibadan, Oba Ladoja received one of the greatest honour of his coronation as President Bola Tinubu graced the historic occasion. When it was time to address the audience, the president gave an inkling of what would be his address to Nigerians on Wednesday, the anniversary of Nigeria’s 65th. In an admixture of felicitations to the new monarch and a message of hope to the Nigerian populace, Tinubu declared that the country’s economic suffering was now back-flung, just the same way a masquerade flings his loose regalia. “Today, I am honoured and feel very proud to give you the cheering news that the economy has turned a corner. There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Your suffering has been as painful to us as a painful surgery. But the economy has now returned to a moment of growth and prosperity. Thank you for your perseverance, and thank you for your endurance,” he sermonized.

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Here we go again. My first reading of the above claim of the president is that he has been so extensively hypnotised by his voodoo economists that he has crossed the Rubicon of reality. Or, that he has mouthed this economic recovery shibboleth for too long that the phrase sounds more like an ad-lib motivational speech that must be repeated like a musical refrain. Other than in the Utopia minds of his minders and in the renteer perception of regime fawners, there is no economic recovery in Nigeria, nor has the economy of the average Nigerian turned any corner. It is still in a long sprint.

When this government came in 2023, its demeanour was equal to the biblical “My father (Buhari) scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions”. At that time, some Nigerians thought, queerly, that though the Madman theory was a concept in international relations, the Nigerian government wanted to suborn obedience by creating economic fear in the minds of the people. With this ad-lib mouthing of the refrain of economic recovery on paper by the president and his team, when in actual fact, reality counters this claim, it seems to occur to Nigerians that government is simply telling them to go jump inside Kudeti River if they do not believe it. Or that a pure Madman theory is at work.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Jonathan’s Betrayal And Askaris In Nigerian Politics

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I just finished reading late Nigeria’s foremost professor of history, Festus Ade-Ajayi’s keynote at the first convocation of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (1999). It was aptly titled, “Development is about the people”. The problem with Nigerian leaders, this current ensemble not excluded, Ade-Ajayi said, is that they are selfish in their prescriptions. While building all their economic and social models, seldom do they enquire what the wishes of the people are. Wherever there is the mouthing of the word ‘development’ and there is no ample recourse to improved quality of people’s life, what we have is regression.

The statistical indicators which the Tinubu team claimed show it that Nigerians are enjoying better times are meaningless if the woman in Oyingbo market cannot agree with them. Same thing with the collapsing inflation rates which they hoist like a scientist who just discovered a fallen object from mass. Those statistics are meaningless if we go to the pharmacy and drugs are still sold at cut-throat prices as they are and our purchasing power is still this lean. Only the Madman theory can explain why leaders would taunt their people with the existence of a surplus when indeed, there is what looks like a famine.

What the president obviously confuses for the general well-being of the people is the flamboyance and the personal economies of his ministers. Indeed, these have “turned a corner”. The talk out there is that his ministers are literally buying up Uranus and Mars with illicit, ill-gotten wealth that will shame Sambo Dasuki’s arms money-gate and Diezani Allison-Madueke’s alleged petrol-dollar sleaze. Yet, there is calm on the home-front. Rather than live by personal example of belt-tightening as he urged his people, the president himself lives the lush life of an Oil Sheik, literally breakfasting in Lisbon, lunch in Paris and dinner in Alaska, at the people’s patrimony’s expense. The Tinubu pain-before-prosperity mantra is appearing as a huge scam. At the UNGA, it was said that 60 presidential aides were ship-loaded to the US, with their big fat estacode (Establishment Code). These are the ones whose economies are turning the corner. The endure-now-to-enjoy-later mantra reminds one of a father who tells his children to endure hard times but lives in unimaginable splendour.

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So, the president knew that Nigerians’ suffering “has been…as a painful surgery”? Interesting. This analogy even makes the situation worse. Surgical procedures are preceded by anaesthesia and followed with analgesics to reduce pain. They are then accompanied with a post-procedure process of recovery and care. None of these did the government administer before yanking us open with its wicked scalpel in May 2023. Nor even thereafter. Many of our compatriots have died needless deaths and many are still dying.

So, when Taiye Currency sang about “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…”, flesh and blood obviously didn’t reveal it to him. Either intended or a dramatic irony, what the musician was communicating was that there is no sanity anywhere in this country. We are in one huge sanatorium. The musician thus deserves commendation and not scorn. This government is curing the madness of hunger and lack with the madness of propaganda of a better life, “growth and prosperity”. And a dark cunning of “a bright light at the end of the tunnel”. Shikena!

 

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Edo To Immortalise Late IGP Solomon Arase

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The Edo State Government is set to immortalise the late Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, who is an indigene of the state.

Governor of the state, Monday Okpebhole, disclosed this on Saturday while receiving the body of the late Arase at the Benin Airport.

Represented by his Chief of Staff, Gani Audu, Okpebholo described late Arase as “one of the finesse police officers and lawyers we have in Edo State,’ adding that “losing him at this time that the Nigeria Police Force and the country in general need him is not good for us”.

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“As a State Government, we will work with the family to see how we can Immortalize him. He was a great son of Edo State.

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It is very painful to the government and people of Edo State but we are consoled with the good life he lived”.

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Okpebholo described Arase as a team player and a man that was always willing to help.

It is painful that we lost somebody who always listens to every complaint and tries as much as possible to solve them”.

He, however, prayed to God to give the family the fortitude to bear the loss, assuring that the government will do all that it can to support his family.

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