An unnamed Chief Superintendent of Police on Tuesday openly
defied the order of the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to vacate the
Magodo Phase 2 Estate area of the state.
The CSP told the governor that he and his armed colleagues
were at the estate on the orders of the Inspector-General of Police, Usman
Baba; as well as the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN).
Sanwo-Olu had led members of his cabinet to visit the
residents protesting the continuous presence of armed policemen in the estate.
For days, policemen besieged the estate in the company of
suspected land grabbers and members of a family who had planned to demolish
property in the choice estate to execute a Supreme Court judgment. The
development has caused commotion at the estate as landlords and tenants panic
over their fate.
The residents subsequently called on the governor to
intervene and Sanwo-Olu visited the scene on Tuesday and told the leader of the
police delegation that the land matter was a case between private individuals and
the state government.
Sanwo-Olu said, “Can you call your superiors in Abuja and
tell them that the governor is here and as the Chief Security Officer, you
don’t have any business being in my state right now and that I want you to
disengage right now?”
But the unnamed CSP replied, “I am here on the instruction
of the Inspector General of Police through the AGF. I am too small or too low
to call them. Your Excellency sir, you can call them sir.”
Asked of the number of policemen at the estate, the defiant
leader of the police team told the governor, “My men are here; they are all
over the place, I cannot precisely tell you how many we are. For security
purpose, I cannot tell you the number.”
After many failed attempts, the governor, miffed, turned to
journalists and declared the presence of the policemen as illegal, adding that
he would make some calls to the IGP and the AGF.
A dissatisfied Sanwo-Olu said, “They (policemen) are not
from the Lagos State Police Command. They said they are from Abuja. I don’t
know what other interest they have beyond keeping the peace of the country.
This is not an expectation that I expect from them because they don’t have any
business here.”
Recall that the 17 Southern
governors in July 2021 resolved that security agencies must notify them as the
chief security officers of their states before they carry out any operation
within their individual domains but the Federal Government through the Nigeria
Police Force, the Nigerian Army, the Department of State Services and other
security agencies have continued to do otherwise.
The lack of control over security apparatus by governors had
over the years fuelled the clamour for devolution of powers from federal to
state governments as many governors including Sanwo-Olu, Nyesom Wike (Rivers),
and other staunch proponents of restructuring believe that state policing would
allow them have control over security agencies in their individual domains
without interference from the government at the centre.
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