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| Solomon Arase - former Police IG |
The acting
Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, says his predecessor, Solomon
Arase, went away with 24 police vehicles while the seven Deputy
Inspectors-General of Police, who retired alongside him, also carted away
between seven and eight cars each.
The
Punch report continues:
Idris
stated that he had written Arase to return the cars, which included two
official bullet-proof BMW 7 series cars, adding that the retired police chief
and his DIGs had yet to return the vehicles.
The
IG, who said this during an interview with journalists on Sunday in Abuja,
explained that a special investigation team was already looking at the records
of police vehicle purchases in the last three years as well as how they were distributed.
Arase,
however, denied the allegations of his successor, saying he didn’t go away with
any police vehicle.
The
former IG, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone on Sunday, denied
taking away 24 police cars, describing the allegations as a malicious
propaganda.
Arase
advised Idris to squarely face security issues confronting the country rather
than engaging in “media propaganda.”
He
said, “What am I going to do with 24 cars? Do I want to open a car shop? This
is a malicious accusation. There are ways of verifying issues rather than
engaging in media propaganda.”
But
Idris, explaining the steps he had taken, said, “If you look through the
windows of my former office and from the report from my (Force) transport
officer, you would see cars but a week to the day I would resume, all these
cars disappeared.
“So,
what I am telling you is that I have signed a directive to my SIP (I have a
special investigation panel, I set it up). It is going to investigate all the
vehicle purchases, contributions to the police and the distribution of those
vehicles in the last three years; we are going to look into that.
“When
I took over, there was no vehicle, even the vehicle I would use. I discovered
the last IG went away with 24 vehicles; the DIGs, some of them eight, some of
them seven. The IG’s vehicles included two BMW 7 series, one armoured; and he
left me with an old car.
“The
last time I followed the President with it, he was asking me, ‘what are you
doing with this old car’ because if you see the headlight, the thing has
changed colour, which means they parked it and rains and everything had fallen
on it, but the new ones that were bought, he (Arase) went with all of them;
they are part of the 24.
“I
wrote back to him and said, we have a policy that says when a policeman
retires, if you are an IG, AIG, a CP, you are entitled to some vehicles;
please, the extra, return it. Four vehicles are enough for an average human
being, but what will you even do with four vehicles; but he took 24 vehicles,
including two BMW cars.
“I
wrote to him (Arase), I wrote to the DIGs.”
Idris
disclosed that the Police Management Team would probe the last promotion in the
Force following complaints by many police personnel that their juniors were
promoted over them.
He
explained that the probe was to address the discrepancies and complaints by
aggrieved police personnel, who were allegedly short-changed during the
exercise.
Idris
stated that the probe panel would be set up to verify if the promotion was in
line with the police service commission policy and regulations.
The
IG explained that his focus was to run a democratic police organization, which
would be responsive and accountable.
He
added that he had directed some audit firms to audit all police investments to
make them more transparent and ensure that the rank and file, who were also
shareholders, had more say in the police companies.
On
strategies to curb the increasing wave of kidnapping and other crimes, Idris
said he would strengthen, retrain and equip the Special Anti-Robbery Squad to
be more responsive and responsible.
He said he recently removed some Area Commanders in Rivers and Kogi states when he learnt that they had been compromised.
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