Chairman of Police Service Commission PSC Dr Solomon Arase has threatened legal action against the publisher of the International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) over a report on a purported sale of some listed police property.
The former police IG who describes the publication as a false narrative said he had never in his capacity as IGP involved in any shady business that tended to undermine the welfare of policemen and women.
PSC spokesman Ikechukwu Ani in a statement said the narrative of the story was a figment of the writer and his sponsor’s imagination.
“While the initial inclination was to ignore the spurious publication with a view to denying the misguided authors and the elements they might be representing the undue attention they were, perhaps, seeking to attract, the depth of the misinformation, maligning content and hatchet man job they clearly seek to project and the overriding consideration of the need to continually protect Dr. Arase’s hard earned public service reputation and integrity, make it expedient that the records be set straight.
“The publication essentially seeks to project a false narrative indicating that in his then capacity as the Inspector-General of Police between 2015-2016, that he drew pecuniary benefits as reward for ‘selling’ police barracks at Mbora District, Abuja.”
A report published on ICIR website alleged that two former inspector of police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris and Solomon Arase received N200 million each and a house allocation as incentives for awarding the estate development contract to a firm.
“The accusations form the central part of an ongoing litigation at the Federal High Court in Abuja where a former staff of the Copran International Limited, Kalu O Kalu, and a lawyer, Francis Mgboh, accused both former IGPs of unlawfully approving the sale of the land designated as police barracks in violation of the federal government’s guideline on the sale of state-owned facilities in the FCT,” a part of the ICIR report said.
But Ani said there was no point during Arase’s service as Inspector-General of Police was he involved in any form of corruption in relation to the project referenced or in broad public service engagements, including his post-retirement national assignment.
“Similarly, at no time in his service record did he sell any police barracks at Mbora District or any other location across the country as being falsely and maliciously alleged,” Ani said.
“At no point in the project perfection process did Dr. Arase seek nor obtain any form of reward as being maliciously and falsely projected by ICIR or their paymasters.
“IGP Arase (rtd), therefore, finds the unholy alliance between ICIR and Barrister Francis Mgboh in engaging the ICIR platform and the cyberspace to malign his personality and taint his hard-earned public service reputation in the manner conveyed in the publication under reference as irresponsible, intolerable, ill-intentioned and in bad faith.
“In issuing this rebuttal, Dr. Arase has as well briefed his lawyers to initiate requisite civil actions against ICIR and their paymasters, while the relevant law enforcement agency has also been petitioned to investigate and prosecute these characters towards holding them criminally liable forcyberstalking and sundry crimes.”
