Abuja (AFP) – {Nigeria’s outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday fired the country’s police chief, a surprise move less than six weeks before leaving office that raised questions of a political motive.} <\/p>\n
A State House press release carried the headline “President Jonathan sacks Suleiman Abba”, and said the police chief had been relieved of his duties “with immediate effect”.<\/p>\n
No reason was given for the dismissal but the wording was unusually strong compared to similar past statements, which typically thank outgoing security chiefs for their service. <\/p>\n
The pro-opposition Nation newspaper on Saturday ran a front-page story claiming Jonathan was facing pressure from his loyalists to fire Abba over his handling of recently concluded elections. <\/p>\n
Jonathan lost the March presidential vote to Muhammadu Buhari, the first time an incumbent has been defeated at the polls in Nigeria’s history. <\/p>\n
Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) party also made huge gains in regional elections, claiming a majority of governorship seats in Nigeria’s 36 states. <\/p>\n
“The timing of (Abba’s) sacking, especially a few weeks after a general election in which Jonathan lost, is food for thought,” Debo Adeniran of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders lobby group, told AFP. <\/p>\n
“It is even more intriguing because Abba still has some 10 years to go before retirement,” he added. <\/p>\n
Adeniran suggested Abba may have made enemies by refusing “to carry out the bidding of Jonathan and the (ruling) Peoples Democratic Party to rig the election”. <\/p>\n
The March vote was praised worldwide for being largely peaceful and credible and there were no significant reports of police misconduct, unlike in past Nigeria elections. <\/p>\n
Police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu was not immediately available to comment the removal of Abba, who was only appointed in August last year. <\/p>\n
Buhari will be sworn in on May 29 and is widely expected to nominate his own choices to fill Nigeria’s top security posts. <\/p>\n
Jonathan on Tuesday named deputy police chief Solomon Arase as the acting head of the force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abuja (AFP) – {Nigeria’s outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday fired the country’s police chief, a surprise move less than six weeks before leaving office that raised questions of a political motive.} A State House press release carried the headline “President Jonathan sacks Suleiman Abba”, and said the police chief had been relieved of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000068360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-19300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000068360,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19300.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19300.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19300.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19300.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19300.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19300.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000068360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19300"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=19300"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=19300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}