The interstate transfer of 62 senior personnel of the Delta State Police Command to states in the northern region has generated furore in the State and constituting a distraction from the Covid-19 pandemic battle.
The Police authority in Abuja had last month effected the posting of the Officers whose ranks ranged between Superintendent of Police, SP and Chief Superintendent of Police, CSP. Not less than 10 of the affected officers are said to be women.
Alkali Baba Usman Assistant Inspector General of Police force Headquarters in a transfer memo dated 30th April containing names of the affected officers and the states to which they have been posted directed them to report in their new stations on or before 29th May, failure which they will be quarried.
The memo reads: “The Inspector-General of Police has ordered the transfer of the following officers from Delta State Command to commands indicated against their names.
“The IGP has noticed flagrant disregard to lawful orders exhibited by officers on transfer to commands/formations. Officers who intentionally decide not to report on or before 29th May, 2020 will be queried.”
But in a swift reaction, South-South Chronicle, a Niger- Delta social cultural group and Non Governmental Organisation, NGO
has condemned the transfer, describing it as ethnic cleansing.
The Group noted that the transfer exercise was nothing but a Northern agenda to give tarcit backing to the herdsmen to pepertrate their evil act.
In a statement, the National Coordinator of the group, Barrister Happy Oharisi said the Inspector General of Police needs questioning over the transfer. “Can it be a coincidence that all the transferred officers are from the Southern part of the country? The female officers have been taken far away from their homes without regard for their marriages and homes. The exercise does not look routine.”
Am not seeing the rationale behind the transfer that have been approved by the Inspector General of police. The activist indicted the Delta State Police Commissioner, Mr. Hafiz Inuwa as manipulating the transfer for inglorious reasons.
The legal luminary noted that the transfer look punitive rather than routine.
In a related development the National Vice President Committee for the Defense of Human Right (CDHR), Prince Taiga, has threatened to challenge the transfer in court.