The immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, has warned his successor, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, to stop humiliating past occupants of the office.
In a letter he wrote to Idris, Arase said while he was in office, he ensured that Force Order 295 was put in place to protect ex-IGs from being demeaned.
Arase, noted 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.
The former IGPs, were Mohammed Abubakar, who retired in 2014 and Suleiman Abba, who was sacked April last year by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Arase in reply to the allegation by Idris that he (Arase) took away 24 police vehicles while leaving office in June, said rather than denigrate Abba, he bought a brand new bulletproof jeep for Abba, despite the fact that Abba’s administration left a debt of N28bn for him to contend with.
Part of the letter published by Punch reads: “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.
“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 model 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.”
Among the 13 vehicles, which Arase said Abubakar took away were a BMW (7 series) bulletproof car; and two Toyota Land Cruiser V8 bulletproof jeeps.
Arase recalled that Abba also took away a Toyota Land Cruiser bulletproof jeep and a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado jeep along with seven other vehicles.
Arase said God had blessed him so much that he would willingly surrender “all my vehicular entitlements even as contained in the Revised Force Order 295 in the overriding interest of the force and in the sustenance of the legacy of comradeship between an incumbent IGP and his predecessor.”
Arase added that he decided to delay in returning the vehicles which Idris said he took away as a form of protest against the “unfair, untidy and demeaning approach the matter was handled until now.”
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