Suleiman Abba:Nigeria’s police chief

Nigeria’s acting inspector general of police, Suleiman Abba, has confirmed the withdrawal of security personnel attached to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.

The security personnel were withdrawn yesterday.

The police boss however issued a statement today confirming an act that has already been done.

“In view of the recent defection by the Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tanbuwal, CFR, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, from the People Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), and having regard to the clear provision of section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has redeployed its personnel attached to his office”, Abba said in a terse statement signed by police PRO, Emmanuel Ojukwu, an acting commissioner.

But analysts were quick to point out that it is not the job of the police chief to interpret the constitution.

“There has to be a judicial pronouncement by the court, as to whether the speaker has flouted the section, in question’, said a lawyer in Lagos. “Tambuwal is still the speaker. Abba and other security chiefs are certainly jumping the gun”.

It is expected that other security agencies would issue similar statements to announce the formal withdrawal of their men.

Men from the Department of State Security service, and the Civil Defence Corps make up the speaker’s security detail.

Tambuwal, speaker of the lower house since June 2011, defected to the opposition All Progressives Congress on Tuesday and also adjourned sitting of the house till 3 December. He said he was going to seek the mandate of his people to contest the governorship of his home state, Sokoto in the February elections.

Tambuwal: PDP juggernaut moves against him

A day after, he emerged the star attraction at the special convention of his new party, the APC in Abuja and symbolically used the party’s broom to demonstrate how the PDP would be swept out of power next year.

Aso Rock had summoned an emergency meeting thereafter to map out strategies of dealing with the ruling party’s new renegade.

The PDP too has been a beneficiary of defections from other parties, such as the Labour Party and APGA. The Labour party governor of the Western Nigerian state of Ondo, defected to PDP, with his entire cabinet and parliamentarians this October.

Similarly, the APGA former governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi also joined the party.

But analysts said the party has always demonstrated some ‘touchiness’ when its own members desert it.

After five governors of the party joined the opposition APC last year, the PDP tried to use the instrumentality of the court to remove them from their seats. But when the strategy ran into hitches, the party inspired the impeachment of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa state in July. Another impeachment against the opposition party governor of Nasarawa state, Tanko Al-Makura was stalled by a cocktail of errors in its execution by the parliamentarians of the state.