The Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has decried the poor attitude of Nigerians to acquisition of knowledge, stating that indiscipline, culture of impunity and quest for accumulation of wealth, rather than the search for knowledge, were obstacles to progress and development in Nigeria.
Ajimobi stated this on Thursday at the formal launch of a book entitled: Policing in a corrosive environment, authored by his Chief Security Officer, CSP Francis Ojomo, which held at the Jogor Centre, Ibadan.
According to the governor, the poor attitude of Nigerians to knowledge was a function of lack of understanding of the chain link between it and wealth.
“Many people do not know that knowledge is power and it gives one an opportunity to make money. If you acquire money before knowledge, you will still need to acquire knowledge to continue to maintain the money,” he counseled.
The governor, who condemned all forms of indiscipline associated with Nigerian public office, observed that the low turn-out of people at the event was a reflection of the attitude of Nigerians to honesty, integrity and hard-work.
“When I came here, I expected the house to be full but the attendance at this occasion is very poor. And it is not surprising. Here is a man (CSP Ojomo) who has arrested so many people for one reason or the other in Oyo State. It is not surprising that those he arrested did not deem it fit to attend his book launch,” he said.
While going on memory lane of his first encounter with the police officer, the governor said he encountered Ojomo at a road block about five years ago while he and his wife were traveling to Lagos, with him behind the wheels.
The governor recalled that on that day, he was stopped by some policemen who mounted the road block and who allowed him to go after ascertaining that he had not ran foul of the law but all of a sudden, Ojomo, who stood ahead of the mounted road block, stopped him and asked why he had not given himself up for screening.
According to the governor, all entreaties to the police chief that he was a senator of the Federal Republic did not stop him from ordering him to come down from the car and open his car boot, maintaining that Ojomo insisted that even if he was president of the country, he would still search his car to be sure he had not contravened the law.
“I was so livid with him and swore that one day, I would deal with him. But immediately I became the governor of Oyo State, I told myself that if indeed I wanted to protect the rule of law, if I wanted a decent man, a man of impeccable character, I needed a police chief who is an epitome of integrity like Ojomo. If I wanted to improve society and lay to rest the culture of impunity, the culture of ‘do you know who I am?’, I needed a man like this police officer. So when I wanted to nominate an officer for the post of my Chief Security Officer, I decided to deal with Ojomo by appointing him my CSO,” he said, amid a thundering applause from the audience.
While commending the police officer for his intellectual exploits, Ajimobi described Ojomo as a gallant police officer, a pride to the police force and Nigeria and a man who was integrity and honesty personified, whom he felt there was no greater honour to be done him than by ensuring that himself, his wife, the deputy governor of the state and all the state executive council members, attended his book launch.
Speakers after speakers at the event commended Ojomo, especially during his tenure as the Divisional Police Officer in the Mapo area of Ibadan where his incorruptibility earned him the sobriquet of “kogbowo, kogbobi.”
The reviewer of the book, Prof. Olawale Albert of the Department of Peace and Conflict, University of Ibadan, described it as a major contribution to knowledge and the ongoing reform in the police.
He said that the five chapters of the book recaptured the history leading to the establishment of the Nigeria Police, noting that Ojomo, in the book, stressed the need for community policing as the way forward to the nation’s security challenges.
In his remarks, the author said the book was written to expose the degree of corruption in the society, especially as it concerns the police force, stressing that any society that thrives on bribery and corruption will crumble.