The failed attempt, in 2007, by President Olusegun Obasanjo to get a third term in office may be haunting the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Kayode Egbetokun, who at the time was the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the then Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
As Lagos Governor, Tinubu, who has since become President, was locked in a bitter political battle with Obasanjo, culminating in Tinubu becoming the arrowhead of those who scuttled Obasanjo’s bid for a third term.
Last June, the National Assembly passed the Police Act Amendment Bill to enable a person appointed to the office of Inspector General of Police (IGP, remain in office until the end of the term stipulated in the letter of appointment.
According to section 18(8) of the Police Act 2020, every police officer shall serve for a period of 35 years or until attaining the age of 60 years, whichever comes first. Going by this provision, Egbetokun, who clocked 60 on September 4, 2024, should automatically have retired.
However, Section 7(6) of the same law specifies that the person appointed to the office of the Inspector-General of Police shall hold office for four years.
It was on the premise of this seeming contradiction, a top police source told The Authority, that Egbetokun is cherry picking the part of the law that suits him.
He noted, “It is confusing that the same President Tinubu who as Lagos governor, fought against Obasanjo’s third term attempt, is the same person champining Egbetokun’s tenure extension.
“Just last month, President Tinubu, during a visit to Enugu, hailed Senator Ken Nnamani, who was Senate President during the third term saga.
“The President said Nnamani, as Senate President, helped to stop Obasanjo’s third term bid and by so doing, ‘saved democracy.”
President Tinubu had remarked, “the man who saved democracy for us all to enjoy, our former Senate President, I cannot forget that memorable time. The time when the third term effort was killed. He put life into freedom, constitutional democracy.”
Also, as National Leader of APC, Tinubu, during a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari in January 2020 in Daura, revealed that he, alongside Buhari and many other patriots, “were in the trenches to stop) Obasanjo’s) third term bid.
Outside the shores of Nigeria, in July 2023 he commended the decision of Senegal President Macky Sall not to seek a third term in office after the end of his tenure.
