For some of us in the media sector who are personally close to Mbu Joseph Mbu; the former Rivers state’s Commissioner of Police and can truly tell the few spots on his skin, we often worry whenever in his usual open verbal characteristics waves the topic away with a finality statement like “I don’t like the press”. Over the years, we have truly come to realize that Mbu actually by nature prefers doing his work and letting them speak for him instead of dissipating energy blowing his trumpet. Of cause in a society like Nigeria where “eye service” is the order of the day, we have fervently been praying that our friend quickly and earlier realizes too that it is not just police, but press is the best friend any one can keep.
This strange euphorbia for the press by our gallant, action and courageous Police Commissioner explains perhaps why he is more seen and heard only from the angle his opponents present him, and not much from his. Of cause for a hard working security officer, stepping on toes of certain individuals must not be ruled out, and whenever this happens, only the side of the individuals is sold to the public. Mbu’s angle is buried. So without seeking to have his express authority, some of us closer to him; and I mean very close have elected to stand for his defenses whenever we have the conviction that he needs to be defended. This is the only way we have promised to encourage most of his good works as well as many other Nigerians. The public can truly rely on our information because we are writing about the Mbu Joseph Mbu we know very well and facts abound everywhere.
Recently, an online medium and a tribal tilted newspaper from the South-West published a story which suggested that the former Rivers State Police boss four to five months after he left Rivers State has stubbornly refused to vacate his former residential quarters for his successor, the new CP Rivers State, Mr. Johnson Tunde Ogunsakin. The writers of the said syndicated story, as bereft of ideas as their sponsors in quickly trying to hit headlines with Mbu’s name refused to appreciate the bureaucratic bottlenecks involved in the movements of properties and families of such senior officers like the Commissioners of Police. They were blind to see that both Commissioners are coming from the same family of the Force, and that the Force Headquarters in Abuja is clearly aware that Mbu Joseph as Police Commissioner in the FCT was yet to move into any official quarters thus the reason his property and family still occupied the CP quarters in Rivers state while Mbu operated also from a hotel in Abuja just like Ogunsakin who left Le Meridian Hotel three months ago is in the IGP Guest House rehabilitated and furnished by the resourceful Mbu before he left Rivers state.
For the purpose of clarification, Mbu Joseph Mbu handed over as Rivers State Commissioner of Police to Mr. Johnson Tunde Ogunsakin between the 14th and 15th of February, 2014 in Port Harcourt and reported to the FCT Police Command on the 16th of same month and moved into an undisclosed hotel for security reasons. Ogunsakin his successor on the other part was lodged at the Le Meridien Hotel, PH and a month’s later was relocated to the IGP’s Guest House which Mbu had earlier renovated. It is therefore misleading, lies, malicious and deceitful by the syndicates of that trash story to say that Ogunsakin had been operating from a hotel since he arrived Rivers state. This is not in line with the ethics of the Nigeria Police Force. Readers in Port Harcourt can visit Olumeni Street by Force Avenue and see where Ogunsakin lives.
It will be recalled that when Mbu Joseph Mbu reported to the Rivers state Police Command, the CP quarters was in a terribly dilapidated shape. It was in the same IG’s Guest House currently occupied by Ogunsakin that Mbu stayed for eight months and with his usual sheer temerity and audacity completely renovated from roof to floor the entire CP quarters, Guest House including the fencing, the gate house, laundry house and the entire premises through mere public relations approach (see images). Mbu moved into the renovated quarters in December, 2013 and in February 2014 his posting to the FCT Command came out. He did same in Oyo state.
In the FCT, the CP’s House is a line-house of 4-bedrooms which ought to have been a guest house and not a living house for a Commissioner of Police. The implication is that Mbu is still operating from a hotel while frantic efforts are still ongoing to secure him a place. It is hoped that Mbu’s property still in his former official quarters in Port Harcourt and some members of his family still there, although being daily harassed by officers suspected to be working for the new CP would vacate the building immediately the Police authorities here provide Mbu with accommodation, and this is almost there.
While it is necessary to inform the general public and even members of the press that both commissioners are of the same Force High Command and that the FCT Police boss has no special interest whatsoever in his former official lodge in Rivers state, it would be important here to caution the CP Rivers state to refrain from acts or conducts unethical, unscrupulous and disreputable to the image of the Nigeria Police Force. Never in the history of the Police Force or even other uniformed organizations had a newly posted officer tried without recourse to decorum or the esprit d’corp to forcefully eject or gain entrance into his predecessor’s home. Suffice to say that recent treatments being meted against Mbu by Ogunsakin lack professional decorum and should be condemned.
Nwadike is a Media Practitioner and writes from greyviewstudios@gmail.com
