Appointment of new IGP won’t be based on ethnicity, says Garba Shehu

Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, says the appointment of the next inspector-general of Police (IGP) will not be based on ethnic considerations.

Mohammed Adamu, the IGP, is expected to leave office on Monday, as he attains the retirement age of 60.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme on Monday, Shehu said the president will appoint the next IGP based on merit and not on factors such as ethnicity or regions.

“If you are going to appoint the service chiefs from every ethnic group in this country, you are going to have more than 250 Inspector-General of Police, 250 Chief of Army Staff, 250 Chief of Naval Staff. It’s not going to work like that. And they have their own systems of producing leadership,” he said.

“If we say we are going to use ethnicity or region as the basis, then we have lost it. This is about law and order, it is not about ethnic identity. This country finished with tribalism in the 1960s, why are we back to it now?

“But if you have two, three positions — look at what happened with the service chiefs just appointed. Two from the South, two from the North. If you are talking about religion, two Muslims, two Christians. So what do you want again?

“The President will rather have an Inspector-General of Police who will make you and I safer, protect life and property than one who is more pronounced by his tribal marks.”