Wole Soyinka critically criticize Joseph Mbu for 'urging the police to kill 20 civilians during election.

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has criticised the Assistant
Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2, Joseph Mbu, for urging the police
to kill 20 civilians for a policeman that is killed before, during and
after the general elections.
Mbu, on Thursday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, had also ordered his men
during his official visit to the Eleweran Command headquarters, to
arrest even the governor of the state if they find him to be violating
the law on election day.
"If one of my men is killed, I shall kill twenty of them but don't
shoot first. If they shoot you, shoot back in self-defence. Anybody
who fires you, fire him back in self-defence. Our actions and
activities will go a long way to decide this election, so, I have come
to tell you that we must remain impartial in ensuring free, fair,
peaceful and violent-free polls.
"As far as the law is concerned, we are not going to respect anybody
and whoever is coming to the booth should vote and leave peacefully.
Anyone who comes there to campaign, even if it is the chief executive
of the state, a constable at that polling booth would stop him," Mbu
said.
In a letter made available to our correspondent on Saturday, Soyinka
described Mbu as a "political jobber" ready to be used by the Peoples
Democratic Party-led Federal Government.
"Goliath Mbu is the latest kid in town, fresh from his triumph in
'taming' governors all over the nation, and reveling in his new
elevation for jobs well done. A political jobber by instinct though a
clamberer through the police profession, he has wasted no time
instructing his men to return violence for violence, fire for fire.
"He has been displaying his new attire and pips all over the place,
demanding to be noticed – as if his facial snarl is not already
plastered over the pages of media annals of police infamy, reminiscent
of the good old days of one Inspector-General (Sunday) Adewusi, who
would appear on television dripping with gas-canisters and grenades,
with a detachment of Kill-and-Go," the Nobel laureate stated.
According to Soyinka, Mbu's actions and words are similar to that of Adewusi.
He said, "Is history about to repeat itself in microcosm? Adewusi was
sacked by the Buhari coup and vanished from the police political
rostrum."
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Soyinka also expressed his regrets and anger over the failure of
governments to punish persons like Adewusi for his impunity rather he
said, those who have acted with impunity were usually accorded state
recognition.
"This warped apportionment of deserving it must be that drives such
officials to treasonable conduct under democracies. If the trend
changes and even the police are made to account for abuses of office,
abuses of the collective rights of citizens, then perhaps we might see
the end of arrogant partisanship in the performance of police duties,"
he added.
In a related development, the All Progressives Congress in a statement
issued on Saturday, described Mbu as a "lawless and barbaric"
policeman who should urgently be called to order by the police
authorities.
"Since his posting to the Zone 2 Command, this contumacious policeman
has exhibited an egregious act of lawlessness by barging through the
Lekki Toll Plaza without paying toll and then ordering the arrest of
policemen and workers at the Plaza. Is it not an irony that a man who
is trained to enforce the law is the same who is breaking the law?"
Said the APC publicity secretary, Mr. Lai Mohammed.
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