Ex-IG says past IGs Abubakar, Abba left with 22 cars

Immediate past Inspector General of Police,

In a letter reportedly written to incumbent IG of Police, Ibrahim Idris, Arase made the revelation while urging Idris to stop humiliating past occupants of the office of the police IG.

Arase further noted that while in office, he ensured that Force Order 295 was put in place to protect ex-IGs from being demeaned.

To this extent, Arase explained that he desisted from ridiculing the last two IGs before him even though he knew that they each went left the office with a total of 22 police vehicles.

Arase said while Mohammed Abubakar, who retired in 2014 left the office with 13 police vehicles, Suleiman Abba, who was sacked in April 2015 by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan left with nine vehicles belonging to the police.

Among the 13 vehicles, which Arase reportedly said Abubakar took away were a BMW (7 series) bulletproof car; and two Toyota Land Cruiser V8 bulletproof jeeps while Abba also took away a Toyota Land Cruiser bulletproof jeep and a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado jeep along with seven other vehicles.

Arase further said rather than denigrate Abba, he bought a brand new bulletproof jeep for him, despite inheriting a debt of N28bn from the Abba’s administration.

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.

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“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.”

This is coming as a reply to the allegation by Incumbent IG, Ibrahim Idris that Arase took away 24 police vehicles while leaving office in June 2016.