The immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, says the last two IGPs before him carted away with a total of 22 vehicles upon retirement, The Punch reports.
In a letter dated December 1, 2016, which he wrote to his succesor Ibrahim Idris, Arase said during his time in office he ensured that Force Order 295 was put in place to protect ex-IGs from being demeaned.
According to Arase, Mohammed Abubakar went away with 13 vehicles while Suleiman Abba took away nine when leaving office.
Arase said, “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.”
Some of the vehicles which Arase said Abubakar took away were a BMW (7 series) bulletproof car; and two Toyota Land Cruiser V8 bulletproof jeeps.
According to him, Abba also took away a Toyota Land Cruiser bulletproof jeep and a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado jeep along with seven other vehicles.
It would be recalled that Idris had accused Arase of taking 24 police vehicles upon retirement.
Arase added 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.”
Dolapo is a writer and journalist who works with YNaija. He has interests in Christianity, politics and sports.
return d cars, thief!