Zakari Biu is notorious – Taiwo Olatunji

Taiwo Olatunji, a Media Consultant and Analyst, in this short piece, gave his impression of the personality of the suspended Commissioner of Police in charge of the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Zakari Biu.

I have always known him with notoriety. As an Assistant Commissioner of Police, he was appointed, during the military interregnum of the late General Sani Abacha, as head of Financial Crimes Investigations, Ikoyi, Lagos. Biu hails from a town called Biu, North Eastern part of Nigeria, which ironically is the operational base of the Boko Haram sect, a franchisee of the global terror renegade: al Qaeda. He’s a prolific chain smoker and avid colanut-chewing dark guy. He’s of average height, though very slim and always wears a careless look. His demeanor would tell a discerning mind that he’s not well educated, but unfortunately, many like Zakari Biu, are in the NPF today, given responsibilities, which are clearly above their competencies.

While at Ikoyi, he was very powerful, highly feared and extremely merciless, though intrinsically empty. His words were laws. He clamped many bank chiefs into open ended periods of incarceration, especially those who were unfortunate to have been wrongly pencilled down as enemies of the crazy junta of that era.

However, the beat temporarily stopped for him during the President Olusegun Obasanjo era. And with whatever anyone might say, Obasanjo still has the singular honou, of being touted as a man with little or no tolerance for indiscipline, hence, he dismissed Biu from the NPF.

Dramatically, as events played out recently, President Goodluck Jonathan deployed his Presidential Prerogatives by reinstating the notorious Biu into the NPF. Unfortunately, this was at a time that capable applicants, some of who have strings of degrees, both from onshore and offshore institutions, were denied enlistment into the NPF, except they were prepared to pay bribe money, to secure placements. Yet Biu, a dead wood, was given a space, the second time. Would you say competence guillotined on alter of bribery?

It is gratifying to say that the illogical manner in which President Jonathan exercised his prerogative over the Biu’s case has now become a boomerang.

But many, like Biu, are still in the NPF, lending arms and ammunitions to armed robbers at a fee, raping female suspects, perpetrating extra judicial killings, sabotaging state security info, aiding criminals’ escape from lawful custody, intimidating motorists for bribe and many other unprintable misdemeanors.