PSC dismisses police officers for acts of sabotage

Reduces ranks of two

The Police Service Commission has dismissed four senior police officers over what was described as serious misconduct and acts unbecoming of public officers.

According to the PSC’s spokesman, Ikechukwu Ani, the commission also reduced the ranks of two officers and reprimanded four others. Ani said: “The commission took these decisions at its 10th plenary meeting presided over by the chairman, Musiliu Smith, and which came to an end on December 18, 2020.

“A chief superintendent of police was dismissed for discreditable conduct, dishonesty and act unbecoming of a public officer while a superintendent of police was also dismissed for conspiring with four others to vandalise a transformer and stealing. The commission also directed that the officer should be prosecuted.”

The two other dismissed officers are a deputy superintendent of police and an assistant superintendent of police. The DSP was said to have led a team that intercepted three Mercedes Benz trucks conveying about 300,000 live cartridges smuggled from Benin Republic into Nigeria. The team was said to have impounded the trucks at base for three days but made no entries and did not relay a situation report of the arrest.

The DSP rather raised a fake letter purporting to escort the vehicles and suspects to Federal SARS in Lagos with the dubious intention of ensuring their unlawful release .

“Luck, however, ran out of the team when they were intercepted at a military checkpoint where soldiers on duty insisted on verifying the contents of the trucks. The DSP and his team abandoned the trucks and fled.

“The ASP was dismissed for misappropriation, action prejudicial to the security of the state, sabotage, dishonesty and act unbecoming of a public officer,” Ani said.