As the tenure of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu ends today, Monday, the presidency has said the appointment of next IGP would not be based on ethnicity as speculated.
The president‘s spokesman, Garba Shehu, who featured on Channels TV Sunrise Daily on Monday, said it would be impossible for top security appointments to be based on ethnicity or religion.
He maintained that police have their own ways of producing leaders, adding that if such appointments were based on ethnicity, the country would have more than 250 IGPs.
Mr Garba said the appointment would be based on competence as the position deals with lives and property.
“If we say we are going to use ethnicity or region as the basis, then we have lost it. This is about law and order, it is not about ethnic identity. This country finished with tribalism in the 1960s, why are we back to it now?
“But if you have two, three positions – look at what happened with the service chiefs just appointed: two from the South, two from the North. If you are talking about religion, two Muslims, two Christians. So what do you want again?” he added.
“The President will rather have an Inspector-General of Police who will make you and I safer, protect life and property than one who is more pronounced by his tribal marks,” he said.