By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The news hit me hard on Sunday, August 31, in this year of Our Lord.
It was beyond acceptance that my ever-rendering friend and brother, Dr. Solomon Ehigiator Arase, former Inspector-General of Police of Nigeria and ex-Chairman of the Police Service Commission, had passed away.
It was impossible to control the tears from flowing…
Solo, as all of us his close friends dearly called him, was the quintessential officer and gentleman of the very first order.
Born on June 21, 1956, Solomon Ehigiator Arase enlisted into the Nigeria Police in 1981 after taking a 1980 degree in Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
He equally took the LL.B degree of the University of Benin and LL.M from Lagos State University, specializing in Corporate Management and Finance Law.
A dogged missioner after knowledge, Arase added a Master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Ibadan.
He capped it all with the honor of a doctorate.
A Fellow of the Nigeria Defence College (fdc) and the recipient of the National Police Medal (NPM), Arase exemplified the intellectual bulwark of the Nigeria Police Force in his course of luminary service.
After joining the Nigeria Police in 1981, he distinguished himself in the different departments of the police such as Operations, Investigation, Administration, and Intelligence.
Arase earned his early distinction in the police as a member of the Nigeria Police contingent to the United Nations Mission in Namibia.
An esteemed member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) as well as the International Bar Association (IBA) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), he served as the National Legal Adviser, Alumni Association of the National Defence College – Nigeria (AANDEC).
In the 1990s, Arase was a member of the Failed Bank Inquiry set up by the Federal Government to investigate the massive fraud in the Nigerian banking sector.
He was also a member of the Special Homicide Investigation Team into the murder of the late Bola Ige, the then Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In his time as the Head of the Lagos State Criminal Investigations Department, he worked closely with Lagos State’s Ministry of Justice and the Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (Criminal Justice Programme) to introduce landmark reforms and evaluation mechanisms.
Arase was the Secretary to the Presidential Committee on Nigeria Police Reform in 2006.
He served as a member of the Nigeria Police Committee on Review of the Nigerian Constitution/Police Act.
Arase’s deep involvement in the intellectual development of the police led him into co-editing, with Iheanyi Pita Okute Iwuofor, the landmark book Policing Nigeria in the 21st Century.
He edited other groundbreaking titles such as Monograph on Criminal Investigation and National Security: Intelligence and Community Partnership Approach.
He excelled on the Editorial Board of Nigeria Police: The Journey so Far.
It is indeed noteworthy that Arase’s Course Essay at the Nigeria Defence College won the award for the Best Essay on Internal Security.
Over the years, he contributed several scholarly essays to various eminent local and international journals.
Arase participated in several workshops and other professional engagements in the USA, UK, Canada, Spain, etc.
The highly respected officer earned enormous clout under the auspices of the United Nations, African Union, and ECOWAS.
He set the record as having been the only officer to have served as the Principal Staff Officer (PSO) to three different Inspectors-General of Police between 2002 and 2008.
As the Commissioner of Police at the Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, in 2008, he developed the “Panti Vision” of crime detection.
He upped the ante as the Commissioner of Police, Akwa Ibom State Police Command, by developing anti-robbery and anti-kidnapping operational protocols that proved highly effective in addressing high-level crimes in the state.
When he got promoted to the rank of Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), he served as the Head of the Force Intelligence Bureau (FIB), in which capacity he undertook landmark reform and restructuring initiatives, notably the establishment of the Gender Unit and the successful sourcing of a three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) grant from the Ford Foundation to enhance the operations of the Gender Unit.
Arase set up a state-of-the-art technical intelligence platform which remarkably restored the primacy of the Bureau as the most strategic intelligence agency in the internal security architecture of the country.
He was serving as the Head of the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (FCIID) when he earned the appointment as the acting IGP.
It was in the FCIID that he initiated a close collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to establish a Case Tracking and Analysis Unit.
He equally introduced and enforced a Pre-Trial Detention Policy which ensured that cases of arbitrary detentions were discouraged in the Department.
Arase served as Nigeria’s 18th Inspector-General of Police from April 2015 to June 21, 2016.
He was an ardent believer in fundamental police reforms and an astute embodiment of police history and development, armed with a vision premised on the engagement of intelligence-led policing strategies, community partnership, and the application of cutting-edge technology to policing functions at all levels.
They no longer make them like Dr. Solomon Ehigiator Arase, my inimitable friend and brother.
He was a reason to believe.
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is the author of God of Poetry.
