IJAW Leader and former information commissioner Chief Edwin Clark has lashed out at the chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie for criticising President Goodluck Jonathan for sacking the inspector general of police. 

Earlier this week, President Jonathan removed Suleiman Abba as the inspector general of police and replaced him with deputy inspector general Solomon Arase from Edo State. Alhaji Coomassie criticised the move as suspicious and being anti-northern as Mr Abba was not due to retire until March 22, 2019. 

However, Chief Clark, has attacked Alhaji Coomassie’s statements as ethnically driven and designed to incite the north against President Jonathan. He stressed that elections have come and gone, so winners and those who lost should shelve their differences and work together for the overall interest and well-being of the country. 

Chief Clark said: “For unity to be sustained, equity, justice, fairness and trust are the sacrosanct ingredients to cement our co-existence. We must be our neighbour’s keeper and for this to be realised, all hands must be on deck.” 

According to Chief Clark,  the comments by the ACF chairman, were provocative, wrong and unwarranted especially coming from a former inspector general of police himself. He noted that the problem with the country was ethnicity and religion, which he said the new government must address with seriousness to achieve harmony in Nigeria. 

Chief Clark said that President Jonathan should not be dragged into unnecessary skirmishes and must be allowed to put his house in order before the handover date. Reiterating that Nigeria  belongs to all sections of the country, whether majority or minority, he added that  peace and harmony are compulsory prerequisites. 

Alhaji Coomassie who served as inspector general of police from 1993 to 1999 during the military governments of late General Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalam Abubakar had said that Abba’s removal was suspicious because his offence was not stated. He added that his fate should have been left to the incoming administration to determine