By Rabiu Garba
“The devil is the father of lies. But members of the present generation have made tremendous improvements on it so much that even the devil is green with envy”-Jonathan Swift
In furtherance of its desperate bid to ensure that its evil nay premeditated desire to serve as the undertaker for the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN) out of existence is realised at all cost, no lie is considered too ‘sacrilegious’ to be told against it by the Police, including lying on oath. This explains why this supposedly foremost government law-enforcement agency has long parted ways with the truth in its official dealings with the public.
Ever since it invaded PCN’s new corporate headquarters, arrested and detained the National Commandant, Dr. Dickson Akoh, and 49 other officers, the Police have been rather shifty in the way and manner it has been bandying one lie after another.
As a concerned parent of one of the officers of the corps, I have been following the altercation between the Police and PCN and while in court on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 to witness the proceedings over a Motion-on-Notice filed in October 2017 by the Police to seal PCN headquarters in Jabi Abuja (an office that has been under lock and key by the police since February 28, 2017), I stumbled on an affidavit deposed to at the Federal High Court, Abuja on Monday, October 23, 2017 by one Sgt. Philip Tumba of the Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (CIID), Legal Section of the FCT Police Command, Abuja. The aforementioned affidavit is riddled with perceived lies against the corps.
One of such lies is that PCN headquarters at No. 57, Iya Abubakar Crescent, Off Alex Ekwueme Way, Opposite Jabi Lake, Abuja is a “proceed of crime”. The police further claimed that the statement by the corps that the complex was rented was a “fabricated lie and falsehood” designed to “deceive the honorable court”.
They went on to declare with magisterial impudence that investigations (purportedly) revealed that the said property belongs to the corps. To add insult to a festering injury, the police equally averred that the complex was “built wholly by the defendants (corps) with illicit money derived from criminal acts of Advance Fee Fraud and Money Laundering”. Nothing can be further from the truth.
The mother of all falsehood in that affidavit is the claim that the “Nigeria Police did not at anytime seal the building,” stressing that what it did was to “merely maintaining the normal and professional routine observatory patrol of a scene of crime to prevent further commission of crime and illegal tampering with vital exhibits in the interest of justice and overall public good.”
First and foremost, I wish to respond to some of these misrepresentations by the police starting with this last assertion that it did not seal PCN office. This claim flies in the face of the press statement issued by the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Jimoh O. Moshood dated March 1, 2017. He said, among others: “it is in furtherance of the above that the Nigeria Police Force, the personnel of the Military, Department of State Service, had in a joint security operations swooped on the Head Office of the Peace Corps of Nigeria on the 28 February, 2017 situated opposite Jabi Lake, Utako, SEALED OFF THE BUILDING (emphasis mine) and effected the arrest of one Mr. Akor Dickson, the leader of Peace Corps of Nigeria and forty nine (49) others for investigation in the interest of public safety and security. They will be arraigned in court on completion of investigation.”
This triggers the following questions: between the FPRO and Sgt Tumba, who do Nigerians believe? Do these conflicting statements not confirm the publicly held opinion of the Police as an institution that has scant regard for truth?
To further clarify some of these issues, it has been reported that one DSP Abdullahi Abubakar, an administrative officer with the state CID FCT Command allegedly locked PCN office complex and went away with the key. Till date, the key is allegedly still with him, claiming to be acting on “orders from above”, even without a valid court order.
If the Police are indeed sure that the documents of the building tendered by the corps in the court are cooked up, why didn’t they buttress their assertion with superior documents to counter that of the corps? It is not enough for the police to deny the authenticity of the documents, let them go further by proving it with their own documents.
This same property, which the police claimed was built by the Corps was actually erected in 1985 and used initially as an apartment and suites before PCN rented it from the owner this year, with an initial deposit of three years.
No doubt, the police in its frenzy to tarnish the hard-earned international reputation of PCN patently ignored the need to do a diligent investigation on the true ownership of the property from AGIS, even when the Peace Corps leadership had tendered the tenancy agreement and receipt of payment it entered into with the agents of the bonafide owners of the property. The current Police onslaught against PCN does not surprise keen observers of Nigeria’s history as it did the same to the Nigerian Security Organization (NSO), the precursor of the current DSS, NDLEA, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and of late, the Civil Defence when their Bills were passed by the National Assembly.
Judging from the way and manner the police have been going about this matter, it is becoming irresistible to discountenance the allegations flying around that one Mr. James Cooler Attah Idachaba, the officer in charge of legal services, FCT Police Command, has not been really discharging his official responsibilities with due diligence. Critics alleged that he has been standing his oath of office on its head, ostensibly to satisfy certain vested interest.
On this note, since the police authorities cannot sanction him because he is protecting its interest, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) should rise to the occasion by properly sanctioning him with a view to protecting its well known reputation.
It is a sad commentary on the nation’s legal jurisprudence that a case that has already been taken over by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, can still allegedly be interfered with by someone like Mr. Idachaba without fear of repercussion, as Nigerians are currently witnessing in the case between the Peace Corps and the Police.
The truth about this matter is that the police has shot itself on the foot and is trying to find a convenient way out of its self-imposed logjam. This tango between the Police and PCN has further exposed the hypocrisy of the police. Its actions against the corps are a clear case of vendetta. History, like the Late Nnamdi Azikiwe once said, will vindicate the just (in this case, PCN).
Garba is a public affairs analyst based in Abuja
