Was the revolutionary uniformed graduate of Political Science from the University of Lagos trying to revolutionise the police formation in Rivers State in his 11-month controversial stay in the state where his face-off with the governor, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, made him a notorious figure? Was he a political cop or merely a professional caught in the web of political intrigues?
The then Oyo State CP was redeployed to Rivers State by the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar, in February 2013 , following a scandal involving royalty. Mr Mbu, leading over 250 policemen and with two Armoured Personnel Carriers, had reportedly stormed the Isale Oyo palace of the Ashipa of Oyo and sealed it off. The head of the Ashipa family and Alago of Ago-Oja, Chief Ganiyu Ajiboye, was reportedly taken away by the invading policemen. Ajiboye, who has a running battle with the Oyo State government over his Ashipa title, promptly slammed a N1 billion suit on the IGP for the raid on the palace. Continue.
As Rivers CP, Mbu was up against, again in his own admission, a totally disoriented force. The police were not directing traffic; they were untidy in their appearance and the crime situation in the state festered at will. He said more: “When I came to Port Harcourt, every commissioner under Governor Amaechi had five mobile policemen and Counter- Terrorism Unit men attached to him, I withdrew all of them and gave them one conventional policeman each. The Speaker of the House had 25 policemen and I said: “We must prune them to nine.’’ Local council chairmen were having seven policemen each and I saw it as an abuse. How do we protect the public if all my men are attached to politicians? Because of this action, we did not witness any bank robbery since I came till December. The governor became very angry with me, saying I was sabotaging him and I was sent to fight him. He started insulting me in the public.
“ As all these things were going on, I never knew there was a court case between G. U. Akeh and Felix Obuah. I never knew any of them. I was coming back from a tour when the Director of States Security Service called to tell me that they had removed Akeh as PDP chairman and one Obuah had been asked to take over. That was the genesis of the crisis till today. The governor created his own ‘state police’ In Rivers, we have what they call TIMARIF. It is like the LASTMA of Lagos but it operates like a state police. They harass people and extort them all over the state. We almost had problem with the military because of them. I withdrew all of them from TIMARIF and that weakened them and people were happy. The governor became more angry with me. I told him, Sir: ‘ It is not good to use us to fight your political enemies.
“I have never met the supervising Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike. It was during his visit I came to know him. It is my duty to protect a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the governor got angry and said why should I protect him? There was never a day that Governor Ajimobi asked me why was I protecting PDP government servants.”
But Amaechi said: “Port Harcourt is becoming unsafe and more NYSC members may be kidnapped, except they remove Joseph Mbu. It will worsen when we stop funding the police, because we will soon stop funding them. Mbu is a politician, because he attends political meetings with those who brought him to our state and there is no way you can stop that. The only way you can stop that is to ask the politicians in Abuja to withdraw their commissioner of police.”
In May 2013, Mbu took on the media, specifically accusing a Lagos-based newspaper of accepting bribes from Amaechi to slant its reportage in his (Amaechi’s) favour, and saying that the paper consistently slanted its reports against the Rivers Police Command on the crisis rocking the state chapter PDP), to which he said he was not a party. And in June 2013, responding to the shoot-me-if-you can threat of Amaechi, Mbu, while briefing journalists at the police command headquarters in Port Harcourt on the successes recorded by the state police command since he assumed office as the commissioner of police in March 2013, said: “Governor Amaechi is my friend, he is my brother and my boss. I cannot shoot him. It is the press that is creating the problem between us to sell their papers. It is the press that is saying the governor will shoot me or I shoot him.’’
Although he denied a statement credited to him in June 2013 where he allegedly stated that Amaechi was running a “tyrannical and dictatorial government, and expecting everybody here to say yes sir to him,,” his relationship with Governor Amaechi, who deployed effective media propaganda against him, worsened as the crisis in the state worsened. Mbu was perceived by many as doing the bidding of the Presidency in its spat with Amaechi, the leading opposition governor in the country who is also from President Goodluck Jonathan’s South-South geopolitical zone.
And when the state police command, last month, disrupted a pro-Governor Rotimi Amaechi rally in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state, several people, including the senator representing Rivers South-East senatorial district, Senator Magnus Abe, were reportedly injured. The APC promptly handed down a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Government and the IGP to redeploy the CP. It said: “We are compiling the sins of Mbu against Rivers people. We will also compile efforts made by the Rivers State Government in asking for Mbu’s redeployment. We are aware of the National Assembly’s resolution that Mbu should be redeployed and we are giving the Federal Government from now till Monday to redeploy the state police commissioner from Rivers.
“The Federal Government is trying to prove that we (Rivers people) are a conquered state. But by Monday, if nothing happens, we are going to write a petition to the United Nations on what Mbu’s mission is in the state. For the police to have shot a serving senator and fired teargas in a place where we had children and other innocent citizens shows that Mbu has done his worst and should be ready to leave.”
But the Amaechi-Mbu crisis further worsened last month when the State Police Command revealed that preliminary investigation showed that Leader of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Chidi Lloyd, who was arrested recently for alleged killing of Police Sergeant Urang Obediah and one Kingsley Ejue, on December 30, last year, drove the vehicle that reportedly killed the two men. Lloyd is Amaechi’s man.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ahmad Muhammad, said: “Hon. Chidi Lloyd on December 30, 2013 while pursing his political opponent, knocked down Sgt. Urang Obadiah, in spite of his effort to stop him, rammed and killed him and went ahead to crush the Passat car of Mr. Kingsley Ejeuo was driving and killed him. Initially the police thought that it was a mere accident, which ought to have been a manslaughter. The CP directed ACP Aliyu Garba, the Area Commander Metro, to visit him in his hospital bed and commiserate with him. Conscious of what he did, Chidi Lloyd relocated to another hospital. Facts emerged that Chidi Lloyd drove a bullet-proof vehicle while pursuing his political opponent, late Mr Kingsley Ejeuo, and he (Lloyd) knocked down Sgt. Urang Obediah, who died on the spot and (Lloyd) moved ahead to smash a political opponent in his Passat car who equally died instantly.”
Mohammed then laid viciously into the governor: “The attempt to smuggle Chidi Lloyd out of the state, as a first step to jetting him out of the country, which was thwarted by the police, did not only take the governor by surprise, but infuriated him to the extent that he lost the sense of decorum by publicly addressing the Commissioner of Police as a ‘mad, irresponsible and rude man.’ It did not end there as he went ahead to put a call to the IGP, describing the CP in the same vein.”
Lloyd had been arrested for hitting his colleague, Michael Chinda with a mace during the mayhem at Rivers State Assembly in July 2013. While Chinad almost died, Lloyd rushed to the press, presenting himself as the victim. He revelled in images of him lying on a hospital bed. But then a video surfaced on the internet showing him viciously pounding Chinda with the mace.
As the crisis raged, the anti-Mbu calls grew louder. Transfer him to Boko Haram territory to prove his strength, the APC in Rivers urged the police authorities, echoing the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. However, will Mbu’s redeployment to the FCT stem the crisis in Rivers, particularly as the governor is still in the daily business of demonising his former party and taking on Wike, President Jonathan or the First Lady? The drama has only just begun.
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