The President‘s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, on Monday, said it would be impossible for top security appointments to be based on ethnicity or religion.

He maintained that police have their own ways of producing leaders, adding that if such appointments were based on ethnicity, the country would have more than 250 IGPs.

According to him; the appointment would be based on competence as the position deals with lives and properties.

He said; “If we say we are going to use ethnicity or region as the basis, then we have lost it. This is about law and order, it is not about ethnic identity. This country finished with tribalism in the 1960s, why are we back to it now?

“But if you have two, three positions – look at what happened with the service chiefs just appointed: two from the South, two from the North. If you are talking about religion, two Muslims, two Christians. So what do you want again?” he added.

“The President will rather have an Inspector-General of Police who will make you and I safer, protect life and property than one who is more pronounced by his tribal marks,” he said.