NDLEA replies police, vows to prosecute officers indicted with Kyari
By Odita Sunday
• Confusion over closure of intelligence units
• Arase says the existence of units contravenes the original plan
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has said it will not spare any of its officers indicted by the police authorities.
NDLEA spoke in response to a challenge posed to it on Monday by the police, asking the agency to also try its men involved in drug deal with the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police and Head, Intelligence Response Team of the Nigeria Police Force, Abba Kyari.
The police claimed some officials of the NDLEA at the Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu, were on the payroll of some international drug dealers. The claim came shortly after NDLEA declared Kyari, wanted for alleged drug trafficking.
The Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, made the position of the police known in a statement, which stated that the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, had commenced probing of officers indicted in the matter.
The statement said: “In line with standard administrative procedures of the Force, the Inspector-General of Police has ordered a high-level, discreet and in-house investigation into the allegations.”
It added that the drug dealers involved connived with NDLEA officials and asked the agency to investigate them.
But the NDLEA spokesman, Babafemi, who spoke with The Guardian, assured the police that there would be no sacred cow in their ongoing investigation on Kyari drug deals.
He said: “We did give an assurance in our statement on Monday that ‘no stone will be left unturned to ensure that all suspects already in custody and those that may still be indicted in the course of the investigation will face the full weight of the law at the end of the ongoing probe and that still stands. If anyone has concrete information or evidence, our doors are open.”
Meanwhile, there has been confusion over a claim that IGP has ordered the closure of all satellite units of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and Special Tactical Squad (STS) units across the country.
The scrapping was contained in viral ‘Police Wireless Message.’
It reads in part: “You are directed to shut down all command bases and collapse them to the headquarters with immediate effect.”
But Adejobi debunked the claim, saying “I am not aware.”
Retired IGP Solomon Arase told The Guardian that if the scrapping of the satellite units is true, it is in tandem with the original police plan.
He said: “That’s in tandem with the original conceptualisation of the lRT. The lGP is only realigning to the intendment of the policy and curing the defects occasioned by strategic leadership that were operationally and tactically porous.”
