Between DCP Zango and Citizen Umeh

Notes for File

For those who have not heard the bizarre story, it was reported that one Vincent Umeh from the South-east innocently bought a house on Mohammad Mustapha Way, Yola, Adamawa State.

While he was looking forward to enjoying his new apartment, Ibrahim Baba Zango, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) deployed in Lagos, warned Umeh to steer clear of the sold property, insisting that a southerner was not qualified to be his neighbour.

If this chauvinism-driven threat against Umeh was coming from one local northern villager, it could be easily explicable. But bigotry coming from a law enforcement officer of Zango’s standing in a federal institution as the Nigeria Police Force is a source of national shame.

This condemnable extremism is believed to be holding down development in the north and should be a source of concern for northern leaders. For instance, Nigeria’s Sokoto Caliphate was founded long before the Dubai of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was established. Fifty years ago, Dubai was a desert. Today, it is a tourist destination for development and anything modern. Dubai by all standards is the most digitised city in the world today. Northern influence peddlers have made it their second home but find it hard to replicate the easy life of Dubai in their region.

Without distorting her Islamic principle, today, Dubai is one of the most technology-driven cities the world has yet seen. Nobody has seen the Émirate make a show of destroying alcoholic beverages the way Kano State celebrates destruction by the Sharia police.

If Dubai was closing up and exhibiting fundamentalism, it would still have been a desert.

The action of DCP Zango against citizen Umeh has justified the action of separatist agitators across the country.

The Igbo businessman has demonstrated that he is a better and a more patriotic Nigerian citizen than the police officer. An officer like Zango is a threat to other Nigerian tribes and the country’s unity and should be retired compulsorily from the police.

Such bigoted officer is an embarrassment to the force and Nigeria.

Adamawa State and federal governments, as well as the Emirate Council under the revered Lamido Adamawa should ensure the safety of citizen Umeh’s life and property.