Profile Of The Man Replacing CP Mbu In Rivers

The announcement on Thursday by the Inspector General of Police that Rivers State former Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu, will be replaced by a certain Johnson Tunde Ogunsakin was greeted with a mixture of a short-lived relief and apprehension.

The reason for this is not far-fetched. Mbu has continually been in the news for the wrong reasons in the past few months. However, residents of the state and indeed Nigerians from other parts of the country are still concerned about the manner of man coming in to replace controversial CP Mbu.

The piece is solely to uncover the make –up of the personality coming in to head the police formations in the volatile state as from next week. Ogunsakin, who until recently was the Commissioner of Police in charge of the Special Fraud Unit, Lagos was born on August 1, 1957. The ebullient super-cop hails from Ikere Ekiti in Ekiti State.

He attended L.A Primary School, Ikere-Ekiti and later proceeded to Annunciation College, Ikere-Ekiti. He attended the then University of Ife, Ile-Ife now Obafemi Awolowo University and graduated in 1980 with B.A (Hons) in Political Science/History.

He did the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in Ogun State in 1981 and followed up with an Advanced Diploma in Law Diplomacy/Conflict Management from University of Jos. Ogunsakin’s career in law enforcement began in 1982, when he enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force as a Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police, ASP.

He cut his ‘professional teeth’ in 1984 in Ibadan as the Divisional Crime Officer, in charge of the upper class residential area of Bodija, at the Police Station. In 1985, he received his anti-riot Mobile Police Training at Gwoza, Borno State.

He was the Unit Commander No. 4 Squadron, Ibadan before he joined the Interpol Lagos as a detective Superintendent in 1989. At Interpol, he became head and he was a shade ahead of his pack.

This got him noticed and he was rapidly moved through the ranks, as the officer in-charge of Organized Crime Division, Officer in-charge of Europe/ North America Economic and Financial Crime Division and ACP in-charge of Interpol within a short period Ogunsakin, a vastly experienced police officer, who is versed in law enforcement issues , led the team of the officers that trained the team that put an end to the notorious armed robbery gang of Lawrence Anini’s reign of terror in the country.

Speaking on his work experience in an interview with journalists, Ogunsakin gave an insight into the kind of man he is: “I was in the mobile Police in Lagos when Anini was operating. Lagos was grouped into commands.

CPs were in charge of Area commands, and I was posted to Apapa (in Lagos) and my unit was a very strong one and we always got accolades and I really enjoyed myself in the mobile unit because it was a situation that ‘If you are good in the mobile, you are good’ because they are very professional.

I remember especially that I was nicknamed ‘Tunde OC Court’ or ‘Tunde Idiagbon’ in Ibadan because they know I will never want to hear about anybody collecting money at the road blocks.

My experience at the road traffic in Ibadan helped me a lot. Back then in Ibadan, anybody that was caught was taken to court. hence the nickname given to me.

The former Director of Opeartions in the EFCC, worked alongside his former Chairman in the anti-graft agency, at the Interpol Headquarters in Lagos and has zero tolerance for crimes, especially fraud and grafts-related vices.

He spoke about his working place experience recently and had this to say: ‘’I worked with a lot of Commissioners of Police in the Interpol, I worked with CP Daura, who retired as AIG, he was the administrator of Yobe State and later with Mrs. Ojomo for about five years.

I was her P.A and became her S.A, she retired as D IG. She was a woman totally incorruptible and I was glad I worked under her’’. ‘’I was AC CID to the incumbent Inspector General of  Police as Commissioner of Police in Jos.

I worked very closely with him and he is another incorruptible police officer. He is the IG now and Nigeria is lucky to have him because he is a very efficient officer. When it comes to operations, he is fantastic, he is very good and maybe I should not be praising my IG but then, I can tell you I worked with him and I know him very well that we are lucky to have him in Nigeria as IG’’.

‘’’I handled the INEC case which we recovered about N23 Million. I handled the case of FIRS where we recovered about N650 Million and the suspects were charged to court and other cases like that. Subsequently, I worked in the Provost office briefly and I was taken to the Police Staff College as Director of Studies for few months. I was taken back to Abuja, I worked in the Force Secretary’s office.

From there, I was moved to IG monitoring unit where I worked under Mr. Sunday Ehindero. From there, I was moved to ICPC as Head of Investigation and the records are there to see.

‘’I must mention that Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, a retired justice of the Supreme Court is somebody I see myself very lucky to have worked with because I learnt a lot from him. When I got to ICPC, there were lots of things we want to do but he was like, he slowed us down saying we have to be very thorough’’.

‘’In most of the cases I handled, I had to first send them to his office and he will call me to his office saying ‘Tunde, o ya, sit down, you want to charge this man to the court?’ I said ‘yes sir’. He is now like ‘ok, I am the Judge in this court, you are the prosecutor, convince me why this man should go to the court’ and all that.

If you are not prepared, then you messed yourself up. So before taking a case to him, you know what he is going to ask you and you must be well prepared’’ Ogunsakin is a modern day police officer who believes in employing technology to assist in the task of policing.

His achievements in this regards in his short stint at the Special Fraud Unit has been applauded by all and sundry, who are familiar with his work.

‘’ We already have a forensic investigation building under construction. The paramount reason we are putting this in place is because of the globalization of fraud and crime and the issue of the internet fraud, identity fraud.

The whole world is going IT, fraud is going IT. The world is dynamic. We have to move with the time. When we came in we knew we had a situation where our officers have to be trained and that was why we started the issue of forensic training.

A whole floor will be on cyber crime, internet fraud and all that. We are already partnering with our friends, City of London Police to train our officers abroad. Recently, we are handling some cases by some people from abroad where these people were defrauded by some Nigerians who asked them to send some goods and they were nowhere to be found. We have recovered a lot of things which we have returned to the victims,’’ he enthused.