President meets police chiefs over rising political killings, banditry

Following a recent spate of apparent political killings and banditry across Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo met police chiefs on Monday to discuss measures to improve security ahead of local elections on 27 March. Speaking after Monday’s meeting, Obasanjo accused the police of failing to live up to its security responsibilities. He said that after a recent attempt on the life of George Akume, governor of the central state of Benue, he had ordered the police to go in hot pursuit of the gunmen with their helicopters, only to be told they were faulty. “If we have a helicopter that is not working, we must repair it instantly and if it is too bad to be repaired, we should throw it away,” said Obasanjo. “If we do not have a helicopter, let us know that we do not have one.” The head of the Nigeria Police Force, Tafa Balogun, said he had begun a far-reaching reorganisation of the police in order to improve its crime-fighting capacity. “We have made the resolve to fight crime in its totality,” he said. “We will make sure that whatever the reasons for the killings, they are addressed and the killers arrested.” The recent spate of deaths have aroused much suspicion since some of the victims are political and state officials. Philip Olorunnipa, head of the electoral commission in Kogi State, was attacked and shot dead by gunmen in his home near the state capital, Lokoja, on Sunday. Olorunnipa was to have overseen the local polls in Kogi. His death was followed by reprisal attacks between factions of the ruling People’s Democratic People (PDP) in Kogi State in which at least three more people were killed. Last week, unknown gunmen opened fire on Akume’s motorcade, killing Andrew Agom – his friend and a former managing director of Nigeria Airways – who had been sitting next to him. A police guard was also killed. Later that week, the convoy of Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu was attacked by another set of gunmen in southeast Nigeria. However, Tinubu was not travelling in the convoy at the time. All the recent killings have targeted members of the ruling PDP, headed by Obasanjo, or individuals with ties to it. Opposition politician Balarabe Musa of the People’s Redemption Party blamed the ruling party for most of the violence, urging it to look inward for those responsible for its members’ deaths. According to Musa, much of the violence is a result of rigging in last April’s presidential and parliamentary elections compounded, he claims, by plans to rig local polls on 27 March. “Those who rig elections with the help of the army and police should account for the political violence,” Musa charged. Local and international observers said last year’s vote was marred by widespread electoral fraud, including the stuffing of ballot papers, and the use of thugs against opponents. Analysts and human rights groups accuse rival political parties in Nigeria of frequently resorting to violence as a means of intimidating opponents during campaigns. Large quantities of arms and ammunitions handed over to political thugs by politicians are often used to perpetrate other crimes, including armed robbery, they say. There has been a long list of unsolved political murders since Obasanjo’s election to office in 1999, which ended more than 15 years of military rule. One high-profile case was that of former justice minister Bola Ige, murdered in December 2002 in his home in the south-western city of Ibadan. Though Ige was from the Alliance for Democracy party, he was also a member of Obasanjo’s cabinet. Then, in March 2003, Marshall Harry, a former PDP member turned opposition leader, was shot dead in his home in the capital, Abuja. On 6 April 2004 another leading PDP member, Aminsoari Dikibo, was shot and killed by unnamed gunmen.