Moses Jitoboh, a former deputy inspector-general of police, is dead, Peoples Gazette has learnt.

Mr Jitoboh, a Bayelsa native, died on Friday morning at the Garki General Hospital Abuja after complications from blood clots in his lungs, according to online outlet The Network, which first reported the news on Friday afternoon. He was 54.

Mr Jitoboh served as the aide-de-camp to President Goodluck Jonathan and quickly rose through the ranks in the Nigeria Police Force. But he was perhaps best known as a victim of one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s most brazen acts of nepotism when he was passed over for the position of inspector-general in favour of Usman Baba Alkali. 

The Gazette in December 2020 exposed Mr Buhari’s plot to circumvent federal law to elevate another officer of northern extraction to the top police job. The president at the time denied wrongdoing after widespread uproar greeted the revelation. 

Mr Jitoboh, an assistant inspector-general at the time, was hurriedly promoted to deputy inspector-general of police before being forced into early retirement by Mr Buhari’s government. He had enrolled in the police at a younger age than his peers, which earned him frequent attacks throughout the force. He was legally due for retirement in 2029. Still, his exit was seen as another instance of Mr Buhari’s transparent preference for people of his northern region at a steep cost to citizens from other parts of the country.  

A wrongful termination lawsuit Mr Jitoboh filed to contest his retirement was still pending before the Abuja Division of the National Industrial Court was still ongoing before his death.