Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Gabriel Giwa-Amu, has expressed disgust over the recent escape from police custody of a high profile suspect in the Madala, Niger State Christmas day bombing, which claimed about 50 lives, Kabiru Umar, aka Kabiru Sokoto.
Describing the development as an indictment of the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, Giwa-Amu said: “It is indeed pathetic that this government has lost track and genuine interest in the security, safety and good governance of this country.
“The Nigerian Police Force, except for some decent hard working police officers and men, has been reduced to mere village watchdogs, a gathering of incompetent village sanitary officers who are just an amalgamation of celebrated maggots that are deep seated in corruption and constantly engaging in extra -judicial murder.”
According to him: “The Nigeria police as it is presently constituted does not reflect the direction of the Presidency as it relates to good governance, but that at best, and as it is said in Police parlance, ‘the Police Force is driving against traffic.’
“Let me ask: who recalled Zakari Biu after he was ignominiously booted out of the Police Force? Has the same Zakari Biu not regrettably turned out to be an instrument that is only applicable in derailing anything and everything good?”
On the issue of the removal of oil subsidy and the deregulation of the downstream sector, he said he has confidence in the efficacy of the protest and strike that took place between January 9 and 16, 2012 that held the Nigeria nation to a standstill, stressing that he is particularly fulfilled because he participated fully until it was abruptly truncated and satisfied also that it brought awareness to the generality of the Nigeria people.
He added: “I am sure and except our President is a sadist which I think he is not, that the pandora box whose lids have been flipped open by the amount of shocking revelations at the ongoing House of Assembly Ad-Hoc Committee inaugurated to probe the squalid activities of the officials in the nation’s oil industry would have pricked his conscience and awaken the patriotic spirit in him that would compel him to apologise to Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora and thereafter revert the pump price to N20 per litre.”
Giwa-Amu said by doing so, the President would have added to the plethora of palliatives he has been horning since the agitation that followed his government’s removal of subsidy on petrol.