Nigeria Police recover N2.7m bribe money from Assistant Commissioner of Police
This was contained in the third quarter report of the unit released on
Thursday, October 13th, by Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police and
Head of CRU in Abuja, ACP Abayomi Shogunle
The bribe money was recovered from the ACP after the case was referred
to the X-Squad for necessary action in line with the directive issued by
the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris, NPM, mni that
X-Squad be included. Shogunle said necessary disciplinary procedures
are ongoing against the officer involved in the unacceptable conduct.
See the full report below:
In line with its mandate of receiving and resolving cases of police
professional misconduct, the Complaint Response Unit (CRU) of the
Nigeria Police Force has resolved 324 cases out of a total of 405
complaints made against the police by members of the public between July
1st, and September 30th, 2016. 51 out of cases reported during period
under review were found to be false while 30 cases are still pending.
Rivers Police Command tops the state ranking with a total number of 78
cases, followed by Lagos with 72 and FCT-Abuja with 48 cases. The Q3
report shows that over half of the complaints against the police came
from four state commands - Rivers, Lagos, FCT-Abuja and Anambra which
accounts for 55.06% of complaints during the period under review.
No single complaint was reported against the police in six state
commands - Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Osun and Sokoto. Kebbi state
remains the only command with no complaint made against the police
since the inception of the CRU in November, 2015.
Professional misconduct tops the complaint distribution category with
154 entries, followed by demanding money for bail with 144 entries.
More complaints were received via phone call – 294 cases, while
WhatsApp – 55, Twitter – 20, email – 19, Facebook – 6, SMS – 2, BBM – 1
and 8 cases reported via others (petition letters, media publications).
A copy of the report available at the NPF website http://www.npf.gov.ng/images/P
Necessary disciplinary procedures are ongoing against the officer
involved in the unacceptable conduct just as the suspect arrested in
respect of the case upon which the bribe money was collected has since
been handed over to the relevant Government agency for prosecution for
the offence that necessitated the arrest of the suspect.
The bribe money was recovered from the ACP after the case was referred
to the X-Squad for necessary action in line with the directive issued by
the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris, NPM, mni that
X-Squad be included as part of CRU responding agents. The new inclusion
of X-Squad as one of CRU responding agents in addition to State Provost
Marshals, OC SIB, Control-Room demonstrates the IGP’s determination in
ensuring more effective response to cases of alleged police
professional misconduct nationwide.
According to Ag. ACP Abayomi Shogunle, Head of CRU who signed the 2016
Q3 Report, the nationwide sharp reduction in complaints against the
police during the period under review is linked to the fact that
Nigerian Police officers are becoming more professional in carrying out
their duties as a result of capacity training programmes, the zero
tolerance of the current police leadership to all forms of professional
misconduct and the police awareness that the public can now easily
report unsatisfactory police conducts.
The report states that in line with international best practices of
building police-public trust, monitoring safeguards are in place to
ensure protection of human rights during policing operations nationwide
and that more collaboration activities are scheduled with stakeholder –
local and international groups in the last quarter of this year. In
order to increase the level of awareness about the CRU, IGP Ibrahim
Idris has approved the production of CRU information handbills/flyers
in local languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba) and same would be distributed
to all Local Government Area in Nigeria this October.
