Updated: Buhari names Alkali Baba as acting IGP

President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed DIG Usman Alkali Baba as acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP).

Minister of Police Affairs, Maigari Dingyadi, disclosed this on Tuesday when he spoke with State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Until his appointment, Baba was the deputy inspector-general of police, force criminal investigation department, force headquarters.

He was born on March 1, 1963 in Geidam, Yobe State, and got enlisted in the Nigeria Police Force on March 15, 1988.

Baba holds a Teacher’s grade II certificate (TC II) from Teachers College, Potiskum, Yobe.

He has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Bayero University, Kano.

He also has a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Maiduguri, Borno State.

The President had on February 4, 2021 extended the tenure of Mohammed Adamu as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) for three months.

Adamu has spent two months and three days of the extension period.

Responding to a question on why Adamu was not allowed to completed the three-month period, the police affairs minister said, “Mr. President is aware of this and you cannot take away that responsibility from him; he’s the one who is in charge of appointing or extending tenures.

“He has now decided to appoint a new person. So please allow him that responsibility and we cannot do anything about it.”

Dingyadi said the president is grateful to the outgoing IGP “for his professionalism and dedication to duty during the period of his tenure.”

Commenting on the selection of the new IGP, the minister said he was picked after a “thorough check of a shortlist of suitably qualified police officers from the rank of DIGs and AIGs, who are eligible police officers, eligible for appointment as IGP.”

The minister said Baba’s appointment is in line with the president’s goal “to rejig the security architecture country, to ensure that the security challenges bedeviling the nation are brought to an end.”

He added that the president has charged Baba to “rise to the challenge to ensure policing reform policy of this administration are fully prioritised and implemented.”