Last week, during my private visit to the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, CP Remi Adeoye, while we were catching up, his orderly came in to inform him that Chief IG Nwanna was around to see him. Immediately, he got up from his seat and said that he should be ushered in. Then, he stepped out of his seat and said to me, “IG Nwanna was my oga in the early 1990s in Onitsha. He was my DPO in Fegge Police Station.” I was shocked, so the only thing I could say was “wow”, as my eyes guessed through the door, eager to see Chief Nwanna. Early 1990s is a very long time ago. Anyway, Fegge is a satellite district in Onitsha South local government area of Anambra State. So, the CP then went to receive IG Nwanna as he walked into his office with his walking aid, old, but firm.
Ushered into the office, the CP received him warmly and both men were happy to see each other. I watched as they excitedly exchanged multiple handshakes before I brought out my phone to capture the moment. Chief Nwanna retired as Chief Supretendent in the Nigeria Police Force, nearly thirty years ago. IG Nwanna was DPO in Fegge Police Station in 1991, a native of Mbaukwu in Awka South local government area of Anambra State. At the time, CP Remi Adeoye was one of his “boys”, a Yoruba junior officer in the Force, who had only commenced his career journey in the Nigeria Police Force.
Looking at these men, I imagined if IG Nwanna at near peak of his career in 1991, had ever thought that Remi Adeoye would rise in the Force to become a Commissioner of Police in Anambra State, while he would be retired and ageing. I listened as both men reminisced about the past, and how IG Nwanna urged officers under his watch to be prime and professional in all their conducts. Chief Nwanna recalled how he made CP Remi Adeoye the OC of “Operation Kpochapu” in Fegge Onitsha, in those days and how CP Adeoye did not disappoint him. From there, CP Remi Adeoye later became the pioneer commander of Anambra State Troupers and later went to serve in Nnewi, Oba and Ojoto in a stretch of ten years he put into policing in Anambra State. This was before he moved on to serve in other places like Portharcourt, Maiduguri, Ethiopia in the African Union joint force for five years, among others, till he returned to Anambra State in 2021 as DC Operations. Eventually confirmed as CP, posted to Lagos, returned to Anambra State as CP Elections earlier this year, before finally transferred to Anambra as the State’s CP.
Looking at the long history of growth of one and the gradual but assured decline of the other, it is indisputable that such is the natural order of things. At the point one is at the peak of his career, there is another at the beginning of his career. The one at his peak will eventually leave the field of play, while the beginner will also begin his ascendancy and may even mount higher stakes than the highest peak of his former boss, just like the case of IG Nwanna and CP Remi Adeoye. The finality of life is that as one grows and succeeds, he also declines and retires. Such an irony, but this is the fate of all men. What is not easily discernable is if many men have realised that even at their peak, they are on a quick and assured decent into obscurity and exit. Even much so that their relevance and legacy might just be the ascendancy of a junior, once an irrelevant colleague, over whom they wielded enough power to make or break.
Precisely 28 years after his retirement from the Police Force and 32 years after he was DPO in Fegge Police Station Onitsha, IG Nwanna walked into the office of Anambra State Commissioner of Police, CP Remi Adeoye, and was most honourably received by the CP, whom once, had his career in the hands of his former DPO boss. Again, validating the fact that growth takes time. CP Remi Adeoye would not have been CP if he had not submitted himself to the necessary processes he must go through. Some young people are today in a haste to become immediately, a person they must work towards becoming in many years to come. Well, in 1921, the prominent Chinese leader, Mao Zedong was among 14 people who attended the communist party’s convention in a girls school in Shangai. Then, he was a teacher and a librarian. But in 1949, he became the leader of China. That is a total of about 28 years from the time he attended the communist convention with others, before Mao could ascend the peak of his political aspiration. This is also a lesson in life’s cycle. What people may die to have immediately, they would have comfortably at a later time, if they had taken time to prepare and position for it.
And so, before I left CP Remi Adeoye’s office, I walked to IG Nwanna’s seat to greet him. He was agile and held my hand firmly. “How are you?” He asked, “I’m fine, Sir”, I responded. “Where are you from,” he queried. I, again, answered. I saw a man steeped in the regimental trainings of the Force. Even at that, there was no pretense about his overflowing joy in CP Remi Adeoye’s remarkable progress and career success. Yet, no champion reigns forever because life will continue to move in cycles.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
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