(Ilorin)
The Commissioner of Police in Kwara State, Mr Kayode Egbetokun, has approved the dismissal of four police officers found guilty of serious offences bordering on indiscipline in the command while eight other officers got various punishments.
However, three lucky others were discharged and acquitted after facing the orderly room trial.
SP Ajayi Okasanmi, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for the Police Command in the state, disclosed this in a statement in Ilorin on Saturday.
He said, “The police commissioner, has ordered the retrial in one of the cases involving four officers.
“One of the cases tried, reviewed and in which punishment of dismissal was upheld, involved the duo of ex-Sgt Sola Akano, and ex- Cpl Babatunde Glorious.”
“They were alleged to have illegally arrested a suspect, booked the suspect already in their custody out on enquiry, but took him to his bank at Zenith bank, Unity road, Ilorin where he was made to empty his bank account withdrawing the sum of N1,190,000 which the dismissed officers collected from him.
“Not done, they again demanded and insisted on the sum of N200,000 bail which they also collected from members of the suspect’s family before releasing him.
“The duo also seized the two phones of the suspect and as at the time of their arrest, the two phones had already been checked and converted to their personal use.
“It was after the suspect regained his freedom that the matter was brought before the police commissioner who ordered the investigation of the two ex-non commissioned officers.”
He said an investigation into the matter, led by ACP Jephta Nengi, did a thorough job to establish all the facts against the dismissed officers.
“The team also discovered that Cpl Babatunde Glorious had also converted one of the two phones seized from the suspect, an iPhone 11 promax, to his personal use with many of his personal pictures and pictures of members of his family seen on the phone.
“The two NCOs were subsequently tried in the orderly room in accordance with police regulations and were consequently dismissed from the force.
“In approving their dismissal, the police commissioner condemned the conduct of the defaulters.
Okasanmi qouted the Commissioner of Police as having declaring the officers involved as “bad eggs that the police cannot continue to harbour.”
The police image maker dismissed insinuations by the disciplined officers that they were punished unjustly “as mere falsehood fabricated with the hope to ambush justice already dispensed in the matter.”
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