Solomon Arase, former inspector-general of police (IGP), has revealed that Mohammed Abubakar and Suleiman Abba, his predecessors, took 22 vehicles of the force away at the end of their service.
According to PUNCH, Arase said this in response to the claim of Ibrahim Idris, the incumbent IGP, that he took 24 vehicles while retiring.
Back in July, Idris had said Arase illegally took away 24 vehicles, and that he had written to him to return them to avoid sanction.
Arase had denied doing so, and in turn accused his successor of vilifying him.
But in a letter dated December 1, Arase advised Idris to avoid engaging in acts that could bring any past occupant of that office to public ridicule.
Arase pointed out that in his time, he ensured that Force Order 295 was put in place to protect ex-IGs from being demeaned.
He said it was in the spirit of this order that he desisted from ridiculing the last two IGs before him even though he knew that they each went away with 13 and nine police vehicles respectively when leaving office.
Arase said rather than denigrate Abba, who he succeeded, he indeed initiated actions and bought a brand new bulletproof jeep for the sacked IG despite the fact that Abba’s administration left a debt of N28bn for him to contend with.
He urged Idris to put the integrity and honour of the Nigeria Police Force first in any action he might want to take so that the force would not be exposed to public ridicule.
“I expect that former occupants of the office of the Inspector-General of Police should not be demeaned. This explains why Force Order 295 was emplaced by the force management under my leadership as acknowledged in your letter in reference,” he wrote.
“In spite of the emplacement of this order and despite the fact that my two immediate predecessors left office with 13 and nine vehicles of different makes and models respectively, I never pressurised either of them to return any of such vehicles neither did I engage in any act that was capable of bringing them to ridicule as being done to me of late by a force I dedicated my life to serving up to the highest level.
“Rather, it is on record that I went the extra mile to source for funds and initiated actions towards purchasing a brand new bulletproof jeep for my immediate predecessor, even after his retirement from service. This was done notwithstanding the fact that I inherited and had to manage a huge debt profile of about N28bn, which limited the financial base of the force at the time.”
Abubakar retired in 2014, while former President Goodluck Jonathan sacked Abba in April 2015.
0 Comments