IG queries CP over face-off with governor

Police High Command in Abuja on Saturday washed its hands off the present face-off between Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and the Commissioner of Police (CP) in the state, Joseph Mbu, declaring that the governor remains the chief security officer of the state and the state Police boss reports to him.

Sunday Independent exclusively gathered that Mbu’s action might have earned him a reprimand from the Police High Command. “Appropriate disciplinary action has been taken against him. His conduct and utterances portray the Force in a very bad light and we cannot condone that,” said a top Police officer.

The source added that the Police High Command observed that Mbu utterly over-stepped his bounds by engaging an incumbent governor in a war of words, “including granting press interview, forgetting that he is a public servant, who should only be seen and not heard.”

It was also gathered that the Police Service Commission (PSC) is documenting the situation in Rivers State and might follow-up the administrative query issued to Mbu by the Police High Command with its own query, which is capable of denying the CP some benefits.

Commenting the Police authority’s displeasure with the face-off, Frank Mbah, spokesperson to the Nigeria Police Force, stated that he was yet to get information that the Rivers State CP is on a war path with the governor.

Mbah said that, as far as the Police High Command is concerned, “Governor Amaechi remains the Chief Security Officer of Rivers State and the Commissioner of Police there reports to him.”

His words: “For disciplinary action to have been taken against the CP, I do not know about that because I do not have such information. But all I know is that there is no friction between the Police in Rivers State and the Governor of the State.

“Evidence to peace between the governor and Mbu is from the security situation in the state.


Sunday Independent