Former police spokesman Don Awunah is dead

AIG Don Awunah is dead

The Nigeria Police Force has confirmed the death of Don Awunah, Assistant Inspector General of Police on Monday. This was confirmed by The Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumiyiwa Adejobi, who said, “We lost him.”

The late AIG Don Awunah, who hailed from Benue State, died in a private hospital in Abuja on Monday morning after a brief illness. Awunah was a member of the Nigeria Police Contingent to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in East-Timor (UNMIT) between 2008 and 2009, where he served as the UN Police Spokesperson.

He held the position of Commander, Owerri Area Command, Imo State between 2010 and 2011, among others. His death occurred after the demise of a Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Force Criminal Investigation, DIG Joseph Egbunike, who slumped and died in office at the Force headquarters in March. Awunah graduated from the University of Lagos, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy.

He also held an M.A in International Relations and Strategic Studies and another Master’s degree in Peace and Security Studies. He held several command positions including Deputy Commissioner of Police, Force Public Relations Officer; Commissioner of Police Training/Courses, POLAC Kano, and Commissioner of Police, Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), Force Headquarters Abuja.

The former Bayelsa Commissioner of Police was also deputy commissioner of Police (Homicide Force Criminal Investigation) and the Intelligence Department. Before his death, Awunah was also Community Policing Project Manager, Contingent Commander, Nigeria Police Contingent, United Nations Integrated Mission, Timor-Leste.

The late police officer was Area Commander, Owerri Area Command, Imo State; Assistant Commissioner of Police, CID Department Akwa Ibom State; Deputy Commissioner of Police, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Edo State, and others. He is also an elder brother of the Chief Commissioner of The Scout Association of Nigeria Hon Dave Awunah.

According to one of his family friend, Philip Soneye who reside in Houston Texas; Awunah was an exceptionally good man. His gentlemanly carriage and comportment completely preceded and subsumed the top cop that he was. He was a family man par excellence, a loyal friend, and an unrepentant patriot. He had a communal essence about his makeup, he cared for everyone and loved the rhythm of conviviality and laughter. He was a scholar in his own right, who treasured academic inquisition. Indeed, he had two well-earned master’s degrees among other academic qualifications. Yet, he was eternally humble enough to subject even his work, correspondences, speeches, lecture notes, and even academic papers, to further interrogation and editorial opinion. He will immediately place a call to you, if he was not in the same space with you, to clarify sentence structures or semantics. He was that thorough.

He was one of very few senior officers who attended full-term courses at the Institute for Security Studies, (ISS) and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS), respectively. He was Police Commissioner in Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states, and until recently, he was AIG in charge of Rivers and Bayelsa states. Apart from command positions in the Nigeria Police Force, (NPF), Awunah served variously as Director of Studies at the Police Academy Wudil, Kano State, (POLAK) and Commandant, Police Staff College, Jos, mentoring younger cops. Late AIG Awunah was a Benue-born seasoned Police officer, who enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force in 1988.

To say he will be sorely missed is a gross understatement.

May his soul rest in perfect peace.