IG Wala: My Personal Perspective By Ikechukwu Obi

I first came in cyber-contact with IG Wala many years ago when he resigned a certain appointment in Gombe ((I think it was a SURE-P committee or so) over issues of corruption. He claimed he was being pressured to do wrong things. I recall praising him to the highest heavens as an exemplary Nigerian. And so he became my friend here.

He was my friend on Facebook from about 2011/2012 to around 2017 (roughly) and we shared similar opinions on many national issues and fell out on others. I think I still have his phone number somewhere… I see IG Wala as a citizen who fully understands the duties of the office of the citizen and is not afraid to engage. His zeal and energy is admirable.


I began disagreeing with him when he started churning out doubtful story after story about the Boko Haram insurgency around 2014. I questioned many of his ‘details’ just as many turned out outright falsehoods and I recall part of my quarrel with him was that he refused to retract same even when events proved them false. He looked like he had a mission.


That he fell in with Buhari in the run-up to the 2015 elections was not a surprise at all neither was it abhorrent to me. No, not at all. Nearly 100% of my Northern Muslim friends sided with Buhari at the time (very understandably considering Nigeria) and a good number used egregious lies and flatulent propaganda to push his cause on social media. Many sincere brothers will admit this today. I bear no one any ill will for his political choices though I will always take exception to the use of lies and deceit to push a cause, political or sociocultural.


And that is where I fell out with IG Wala – lies.


For the life of me, I have NEVER understood why anyone who believes in the astuteness of his cause would use falsehood to propagate his beliefs. I have never understood that. If the progress of Nigeria is the aim, falsehood would be far from you. The Nigerian truth is bleak enough anyway, why lie?


After the elections, IG Wala stepped up his activism. He became so pro-Buhari that he jettisoned all the virtues he hitherto claimed and hugged perfidy with both hands. At the height of Buhari’s paralyzing inertia and calcified ungovernance around 2016-2017, IG Wala was organizing ‘i-stand-with-Buhari’ rallies up and down, claiming ridiculous ‘achievements’ (which he knew and was shown were false).


At the height of revelations about the former SGF Babachir Lawal’s corrupt acts, IG Wala became self-appointed defender of grass-cutting and went round radio and TV stations spreading funny-funny falsehoods. Maybe I expected too much of a normal Nigerian sha. Tuface say nobody holy pass…and I agree.


But i really couldn’t reconcile this type of charlatanism with the ‘anti-corruption’ and ‘patriotic’ posture which attracted me to him many years ago. He seemed to have deviated from the image he cut for himself, an image which endeared him to me in the first place. So i became confused and this unfortunately reflected in my interaction with him.


In his crass, coarse Buharism, IG Wala started defending the very rot we all condemned in 2011/2012. I couldn’t understand that.



Never one to let something incomprehensible pass without challenge, I stayed on IG Wala’s wall, questioning his facts, disputing his opinions and generally (deliberately) constituting a nuisance. I just think (maybe erroneously) that it is better you were never my friend on Facebook (it is not by force, really) and tell your lies safely than you were my respected friend and descend into the sort of perfidy whose criticism made you my friend in the first place. I will feel deceived and won’t let you rest until you block me. And so IG Wala blocked me…and I was satisfied.


Hearing his conviction and sentencing for 12yrs produced mixed feelings. On the one hand, I felt it was too harsh especially for a first offender. Twelve years (even if concurrently)? Haba, did he kill someone? The provisions of the Penal Code notwithstanding, I think Judges usually use their discretion in such cases. It seems this Judge just threw the book at him. Sad. The truth is that IG Wala needn’t serve prison time for the ends of justice to be served in this matter. You’re just clogging up the prison system with a man who may even grow into a martyr of sorts.


On the other hand, I felt IG Wala deserves what he got. I have shouted myself hoarse on these streets telling people to STOP USING LIES to push an agenda. If your facts are not from a credible media source or you don’t have cast-in-stone evidence koro-koro in your hand, please don’t bring that story to Facebook. Your popularity on account of such story will only be useful to you OUTSIDE confinement, not in it.


Personally speaking o, there’s nothing I write here that is not in the public space, nothing that cannot be defended if it comes to that. You may quarrel with my opinions (of course naa, I’m not God); and my language can be bad (I’m human just like you), but I’m careful not to use falsehood in expressing my opinions and I’m usually sworn enemies with those who do.


In terms of the opnion-slinging we do on national issues here, if I am ever arrested for what I have written, I’d rather be a prisoner of conscience than one against whom a real infraction of the laws limiting freedom of speech has been proven.


The lesson in IG Wala’s conviction for us on social media is threefold:


1) Always be sure of whatever you write here. Be damn sure.


2) Social media is a virtual world. That people hail and idolize you here does NOT translate to any sort of immunity from legal processes. On the contrary, the more followers you have, the more exposed you are to these processes. And believe me, the stakes in public office today are so high now that if you pick on a public official without having your hard facts, the way he will throw the sink at you, you will be shocked. Be careful, the stakes are very high.


3) If you support, encourage or promote the cause of a tiger, you will end up its meal.


Finally, even though IG Wala is not the first whistle-blower turned suspect, I still think that Judge was unnecessarily heavy-handed and I pray it is upturned or somehow ‘modified’ on appeal.