Reps probe: Police present forms by ‘dead’ officer

The Nigeria Police Force yesterday presented some documents to a House of Representative Committee purportedly signed by a ‘dead policeman’.

The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is investigating the whereabouts of some riffles missing from the police armoury and N1.9 million cash exhibits.

The riffles and the cash exhibits were said to have gone missing between 2010 and 2013. Consequently, the office of the Auditor General of the Federation raised several queries on the issue.

The committee, chaired by Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers) had late last year questioned the IGP over four pistols and the cash exhibits and demanded full documents on the incident. The police had said the officer involved has died.

At the resumption of sitting on the matter yesterday in Abuja, the committee told the Director of Finance of the Nigeria Police, Aliyu Oba, who represented the IGP that the documents supplied were incomplete.

The police said in its document to the panel that the officer in charge had refunded the exhibit cash and had also filled the forms the lawmakers asked from the police.

But the lawmakers asked if the new officer that took over from the ‘dead policeman’ had visited the graveyard of the late officer to get the cash.

Responding, Oba said: “I thought the bottom line is that the money was returned. I want to plead for understanding so that I can withdraw the first set of forms and do a tidier job in the next hearing.”

“Most of the information supplied the secretariat were not in order and there’s a need for you to liaise with the Secretariat and make relevant corrections,” the committee chairman, Chinda said.

He later ruled that the Nigeria Police led by the IGP must produce all evidence on the matter next one week.