The LEADERSHIP column, Last Word, of March 8, 2010, entitled: "Who Does Onovo Work For?" is nothing but a rhetorical farce aimed at discrediting not only the Inspector-General of Police, Ogbonna Onovo, but the entire police force.  The report coming at a time the country is trying to re-brand and restore hope and confidence leaves little to be desired.

The columnist and so many other columnists like him should exercise caution whenever they handle national and sensitive topics since the nation deserves unbiased, well-investigated and conclusive reports at this critical time of our national history.  Speculations and warped rhetoric should not form the fulcrum of their discourse since what they write most times could have some irreparable effects on the psyche of the people.

But what is the crux of the matter in the submissions?  It is Onovo, The Nigeria police and the issue of robbers ordering the driver of a robbed luxury bus to run over the passengers who did not have money on them.  This matter has taken some bizarre and alarming dimension since the purported report and pictures of the said incident graced the pages of some newspapers recently.  But more political is the matter since it has equally taken the front burner at the National Assembly, which called for an inquiry into the issue. However, at this point, the most important thing should have been the veracity or confirmation of the said incident.  Since the protection of life and property falls within the purview of the Nigeria police, the onus then falls on it to refute or confirm such an incident

The purported incident where robbers ordered the death of those passengers was propagated out of conventional norms and rationale by not only the media, but other concerned stakeholders.  It is, indeed, frightening that such a sensitive security issue of life and death was garnished with obvious drops of illusion and political connotations.

Although one is not holding brief for the police force, but the sad incident of July 31, 2009, along Ijebu-Ode/Sagamu expressway should not be exploited politically or for whatever other parochial reasons to hound Onovo or dent the image of the Nigeria police.  The incident should not be subjected to such myopic and sentimental diagnosis as the case has been since the events of that day remain clear and incontrovertible.

On that day, a luxury bus in the "Young Shall Grow Motors" fleet with vehicle registration number XF 285 AKD driven by one Mr. Oke Okafor from Enugu to Lagos, was attacked by robbers between the Federal Government College, Odogbolu and Babcook University junction along the Ijebu-Ode/Sagamu expressway.  The passengers were ordered to lie face down beside the road.  That was when an on-coming truck with vehicle registration number XN 808 BEN and driven by one Osayinde Idahosa from Edo State appeared and refused to be stopped by the robbers, thereby crushing the passengers by the road side.  It is indeed sad and tragic that a total number of nineteen passengers lost their lives in that single incident.  Even if no one died in that attack, the incident remains tragic and a criminal matter the police should not relent in fishing out the culprits.

Armed robbery incidents have become a recurring phenomenon in our society such that the authorities should do more to empower the police.  The authorities should do more to fund and motivate the Nigeria police.  The National Assembly should also not stop at investigating the robbery incident, but should expedite action on the release of the 2.7 trillion naira police fund already trapped by bureaucratic protocols.

Security in the country should not only be the sole responsibility of the police since every citizen has a contribution to make.  Nobody is praying for such an incident to occur, but given a typical robbery incident that was compounded by the gruesome and bizarre death of the passengers, the anger and agony of the people is no doubt understandable.  In all ramifications, it should be condemned by every decent mind, but not exploited by the public to smear the integrity or competence of Onovo or the police.  Such adverse and negative disposition can only aggravate the situation and work up the society.

I am sure that the columnist only relied on the earlier reports of LEADERSHIP on the incident without confirming it from the police authorities. He should have sought the police angle to the incident before spreading tension and anxiety across the nation.  Journalism should be practised with tact, truth, honour and diligence.

As a citizen of this country, I know that the image of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has become a subject of doubt for sometime.  People still regard the force with disdain such that any positive news from the force is taken with a pinch of salt.  The reputation of the police has, indeed, become its greatest headache.

But it seems the Nigeria police in recent times have buckled up and ready to project an acceptable image.  Although it would take some time to have a completely rejuvenated police force, it is obvious that the current leadership under Onovo has taken the right steps to achieve this herculean task.  Being a tactical administrator, Onovo, it appears, understands the dynamics of policing a nation, especially a multi-faceted society like ours.  He has equally shown some progressive reflexes by his achievements so far, like the outcome of the Anambra State gubernatorial elections and Edo State House of Assembly re-run elections where the police played vital and positive roles.  It is also worthy to note that it was crime-free in all the venues when the nation hosted the cadet World Cup recently.  Even the way the police handled the recent civil protest by civil society groups is also commendable.

The columnist should therefore, use his column to propagate well-researched national issues rather than appearing to be in a haste to churn articles like the current issue, thereby causing disaffection and tension in the country.

•Madueke wrote in from Wuse II, Abuja

He that lives upon hope will die fasting - Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

My earliest recollection of the association between governance and morbidity was when Ambrose Alli, a professor of Morbid Anatomy was elected governor of the old Bendel State in 1979. Flirting with morbidity has now transcended the late professor. Since his exit, the art has become statecraft. Each time a new regime replaces an old order, dead political actors are heroically remembered, frenetically fetched out, penitently dusted out of their graves and soulfully brandished and garbed in the toga of martyrdom and impressively saddled with 'new' responsibilities and the business of governance remains inchoate; business as usual.

Every government in power is a syndrome that has become endemic with Nigeria. The sports arena is not left out. Last month, when it became obvious that the Super Eagles was not going to do well in The World Cup Mundial, a long forgotten, jaded 60-something year-old Swede by the name Lars Lagerback was thrown to international prominence as the technical adviser. Does it mean there are no vibrant young and creative minds that could do the job better? Don't ask me. It has become a way of life in Nigeria.

That's why I sympathise with our dear amiable Acting President about the people he romances openly and secretly. In spite of the tremendous outpouring of emotion and scintillating goodwill of Nigerians and the international community, he has elected to take the road usual, in a patently unusual world and circumstances, by romancing the politically dead; people whose days of delivering the goods are gone. I understand the theoretical ambiguities in matching science with the art of politics. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is a botanist and zoo scientist, trained in my alma mater, but obviously, we are not in the plant and animal kingdom.

Youth-pessimism seems to have beclouded his sense of propriety as soon as he transformed to the Acting president. I cannot understand this obsession with morbidity that made him travel the same route to perdition - the road that has failed all his predecessors, including the last one. How on earth would a young man like Goodluck, with all his supposed education and years in the ivory tower not know that the wisdom of yesterday is today's stupidity. Knowledge is fluid, so the generational gap will rather take us back to the days of yore.

At a  time many of his new-found clique of advisers were on the saddle, so were Generals Chung-hee Park of South Korea, Gamal Abdel Naseer of Egypt, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey and Mr. Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore. So were the leaders of the Asian Tiger's economic revolution. They have since moved on and bequeathed prosperous countries to the successor generation. And the good work continues. From being the world's second poorest nation in 1953, at a time colonialists were afraid to leave Nigeria, because of the fear that the world's most populous black nation had the potential of ruling the global economy, South Korea's fortune has turned. So has Nigeria's.  You can hardly water a burgeoning humanity from the carcasses of the dead. With 'new knowledge' powering the global economic order, hardly can a cabinet, peopled by analogue men and women drive a competitive process. It's just impossible.

If in all the 50 years in government, they could not generate more than 3,000 megawatts of electricity, whereas a single Steel plant in Korea consumes about double that figure, I don't understand the "Miracle of Damman" that will happen in less than 8 month rule of Goodluck.  While we cannot wish away their contributions, we thank them for what they have been able to undo. The truism of our esoteric existence now requires that they take the back seats and throw up new Turks. Goodluck owes us a duty to identify new leaders with a 21st century mind-set. If the fading generation has anything to contribute, I admonish them, if they have not done so, let them begin to compile their memoirs and with the knowledge of hindsight, let the unborn generations know what they did right and acknowledge their transgressions. With age comes sobriety. They need not regret. Let them remorsefully re-chart a roadmap to our collective redemption. Only through that, can they honestly roadmap to a better Nigeria. That is what I call patriotism.

Is Goodluck giving the impression that, that generation remains the best and irreplaceable? That definitely is not the wish of these men and women. I would have wished that they reject the appointments outright and allow today's people instead. Vibrant, intellectually-laced, progressive-minded Nigerians, at home and in the Diaspora, are legion. No matter the set-back of the previous administration, the people that made the critical difference are the ICT-compliant few young men and women. While their older cabinet counterparts were approaching governance the usual way of the 'cemetarians', they took solace in the unusualness of times and impacted the political landscape.

Many Nigerians must have been bewildered and even outraged by the decision of ECOWAS leaders to appoint former president Olusegun Obasanjo to head Africa's monitoring team at the recently concluded Togolese Presidential election. Does Obasanjo command any credibility to monitor elections anywhere after entrenching rigging as a political culture in Nigeria between 2003 and 2007?

He presided over one of the worst elections ever conducted in the political history of not only Nigeria, but also on the African continent. Both the Commonwealth and African Union Observer teams had described the 2007 election as one of the worst in Africa and the world. In fact, the condemnation was so unmistakable and overwhelming that President Yar'Adua himself admitted, during his inauguration, that the election, which brought him to power, was significantly flawed and promised electoral reforms to salvage Nigeria's democratic image; the reforms are still a matter of public debate.

Former President Obasanjo is one of the deadliest enemies of democracy in Africa and his record in office will confirm this perception. He introduced the culture of "imposition", "affirmation", "consensus" and "anointment" at the expense of voters' sovereignty. His do-or-die politics sent the wrong signals across the country to the extent that politicians took the license to kill their rivals or perceived opponents. Freedom of choice, which is one of the key elements of genuine democratic system, received a kiss of death under former President Obasanjo's rule.

He attempted but woefully failed to tamper with the Constitution in order to extend his term limit in office in 2006. The third term agenda was so obviously unpopular that its ultimate collapse was just a matter of time. Billions of public funds were deployed to achieve the ambition, but the National Assembly threw out the attempted amendment because of the high political risk of swimming against the tide.

Niger Republic’s ex-President, Mohmadou Tandja, was a student of Obasanjo's tenure extension school. He was convinced that where his Nigerian teacher (Obasanjo) failed, he would succeed. He destroyed all the formidable sources of opposition to his ambition, including the dissolution of parliament, the constitutional court and the detention of political opponents and forcing others into exile. Where does Obasanjo derive the credibility to qualify for the role of monitoring elections on behalf of ECOWAS?

The spate of political assassinations in Nigeria was a consequence of the dangerous do-or-die politics former President Obasanjo had entrenched in our political culture. As a result, the sovereignty of the voters no longer counted; unpopular candidates were imposed on the people. Where leaders govern without mandate, can Nigeria boast of practising democracy? Convinced that they lost the power to elect leaders of their choice, the electorate retreated into the cocoon of despondency and apathy.

With his dirty and unenviable democratic record, former President Obasanjo doesn't have the credibility to preach about democracy any more, let alone monitor elections on behalf of ECOWAS. He used his former Africa Leadership Forum to deceive the world about his "passion" for democracy. And unfortunately, the world leaders failed to subject his record to critical evaluation merely because he "voluntarily" handed over power to civilians in October 1979.

If the ECOWAS leaders respect their own credibility, they wouldn't have taken the unwise decision of appointing hypocrites like former President Obasanjo to monitor the Togo elections or anywhere else. The crises trailing our democracy were largely caused by Gen. Obasanjo's insincerity. President Yar'Adua appears more sincere about his commitment to democracy than his predecessor.

Throughout his autocratic rule, former President Obasanjo had no respect for court orders. Despite an unambiguous Supreme Court ruling, which told him he had no power to withhold more than N30bn belonging to the Lagos State local government councils, the former President flagrantly ignored the decision of the apex court. He frequently used the EFCC to blackmail and frustrate the ambition of his perceived political enemies.

Most of the problems confronting President Yar'Adua were inherited from Obasanjo. There was no transparency in the privatization process and the award of contracts. Billions have gone into the so-called power projects, but Obasanjo left office, leaving behind unfulfilled promises, including his pledge to raise power generation to 10,000 megawatts by the end of 2007. His administration was characterised by needless waste of funds and hypocrisy in the implementation of the anti-corruption crusade.

Obasanjo is a failure and one cannot understand why a man of this awful record in office should be appointed to monitor the Togo election. The political confusion in Nigeria was caused by Obasanjo. He assumed that President Yar'Adua was a dunce whom he could bend to his wishes. However·, when Yar'Adua began to assert himself, Obasanjo is now using his sickness to stampede him out of office. The late General Sani Abacha was a military ruler, but his tenure elongation project was more tolerable than Obasanjo's third term ambition. Though un-elected, Gen. Abacha was performing remarkably through the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). Obasanjo was frequently attacking Gen. Abacha's perceived anti-democratic tendencies.

At the end of the day, however, he turned out to be the worst enemy of democracy. Therefore, appointing him to monitor the Togo election is the greatest insult to the democratic sensibilities of Nigerians and other black Africans who are struggling to free democracy from civilian dictatorship for which Obasanjo became a notorious symbol.

• Nwachukwu lives at Block 13, Chindo Yamusa Road, Keffi, Nasarawa State