Guardian / Nigeria: Former Inspector-General (IG) of Police, Solomon Arase, has denied taking away 24 vehicles belonging to the Nigeria Police as alleged by his successor, Ibrahim Idris.
Arase, who had since been in London, United Kingdom (UK) a week after his disengagement for his son’s graduation ceremony, said in a statement yesterday that every information needed by his successor on vehicles purchased by the police are in his hand-over notes.
He said all vehicles bought by the police under him were distributed to the state commands and other appropriate units of the force. Arase, who also denied getting any letter from Idris, said: “I suspect there must be a disconnect somewhere because every information needed by my successor are provided in my hand-over notes. I am also not aware that any letter was written to me because if there was any dropped in my house, someone would have alerted me.
“It is unfortunate that this matter is being made a media issue because my successor has my telephone number and could have called me for any clarification or even sent me a text message rather than addressing the media on an issue well documented in my hand-over notes.”
Meanwhile, the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), through its Executive Chairman, Mr. Debo Adeniran, has called for immediate investigations into the claims of the new Acting IG that his predecessor, Mr. Arase, carted away 24 vehicles belonging to the Police while leaving office.
According to Adeniran: “This revelation is once again manifesting how profoundly seated the virus of corruption have eaten into the fabrics of our polity as a country. How do we explain a situation where the ‘hunter’ chooses to get involved with the ‘hunted’? That the custodian of the apex echelon of the Nigeria Police in terms hierarchy is involved or suspected to be involved in the physical carting away of government property is scary, disgusting, embarrassing, uninspiring and absolutely condemnable!
“We also support the move of the new acting IGP to through the police management team probe the last promotion exercise in the Force following complaints by many police personnel that their juniors were promoted over them.”
