Iziogba at 80: An Uncommon Police Offficer Who Had Power Under Control

Iziogba at 80: An Uncommon Police Offficer Who Had Power Under Control

Thursday, May 19, 2022 1:56 am


 

ACP (rtd) Gabriel Iziogba,

By Bayo Adeyinka

I still recall events of those days with nostalgia. I was President of the Students Union and I led an aluta. Being a non-residential University, any aluta by Lautech students usually took Ogbomoso by storm. This was no exception. The town was on fire in a manner of speaking. I had distributed my exco to marshall different strategic areas in the town. Our strategy was to bring everything to a halt and draw attention to our plight.

 

I led a unit of students around an area in Ogbomoso not far from Oríta Naira when we saw a detachment of policemen. We started our normal song, “How many students police go kill o, eeee dey go kill us tire”. As we sang, many students went into a frenzy. That song is an aphrodisiac of viagran proportions. Even the lame and tepid students go wild when they sing that song.

 

The policemen were fully armed. And for you to understand the import of what I’m writing, there was no democracy then. Sanni Abacha was the President. The nation was under a siege. Standing in front of the policemen was a fair complexioned police officer who was impeccably dressed in his uniform. He had come down from his car, a 504 station wagon. He wanted to address us.

 

We were not willing to listen to him. We sang and booed the policemen. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. One of my people (name withheld) climbed the official vehicle (the 504 station wagon) of the policeman who led the team and started stomping the bonnet. We cheered in silly ecstasy. Some of the policemen corked their guns but this fair complexioned man held them back. I was scared that anything could go wrong but I was pleasantly shocked at the calm disposition of this man. He was the Area Commander of the Owode Division. Throughout our demonstration, he led his men to follow us at a safe distance.

 

On another ocassion, there was another major aluta that I led one early morning. I’d written about that demonstration here before on how a student misinformed us about his involvement with a policeman. He had no headlights and the policeman accosted him for driving at night without headlamps. The same policeman, upon hearing that he was a student trying to raise his school fees, gave him money to buy the headlamps but took custody of the vehicle until the student replaced them. The student rushed to us and lied that his vehicle was seized because he refused to pay a bribe. And that was how the aluta started.

 

The demonstration was massive. Eventually, the late Soun of Ogbomoso who recently passed, the former Sole Administrator of LAUTECH (we didn’t have a Vice Chancellor then) who is also late, Prof Akinola Murtala Salau and the Area Commander had to call me for a peace meeting. It was the Area Commander who resolved the issue that day. Even when we discovered that our aluta was on a very faulty premise, his intervention saved the day. I recall he said openly that he also had children like us.

 

He brought me close to himself and I became a regular visitor to his office at Owode, Ogbomoso. He would counsel me and you would think I was his son. All the members of my exco became close to him. He became a father figure to many of us. We drank from his wisdom. He didn’t point the barrel of the gun at us. He won us over with his large heartedness and his understanding.

 

Daddy Gabriel Iziogba, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Retired) was an uncommon police officer during his serving days. A true example of a man who had power under control. A man who went beyond the remit of his duties to win our hearts and turned enemies to friends. If he had taken a wrong step or had allowed himself to be provoked by our youthful exuberance, maybe I won’t be here writing this today.

 

I was very excited when Kate Zien Iziogba buzzed me today and told me he turned 80 today. I have his number and I quickly called him. He was so excited when I mentioned my name. I just had to break my social media hiatus to wish Daddy Gabriel Iziogba a very happy birthday. I won’t let today pass without wishing one of the finest policemen ever made many happy returns.

May your tribe increase, sir.

*Bayo Adeyinka, banker, writer, social entrepreneur and public affairs analyst, writes from Lagos

 

 

 

 

 


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