The house of Representative grill IG of Police over missing guns, cash exhibits

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris was interrogated for close to two hours Wednesday by the House of Representatives over four missing riffles and N1.9m cash exhibits.

House Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) asked the IG to explain the reasons behind the failure of the Police account for the missing exhibits and pistols.According to the Committee Chairman, Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers), the Auditor General of the Federation report of 2010 to 2013 unearth four missing guns along with the cash exhibits with 55 queries raised against the Nigeria Police during the period.

“During the audit examination of arms and ammunitions of the Nigeria Police in 2012, it was observed that four different brands of pistols were missing as contained in the Auditor General’s report.“Also that cash exhibits of N928,000 in 2011; N100,000 in 2012; another  N720,000 in addition to a Dell laptop worth N250,000, totaling N1.998m all went missing,” Chinda said.

The IG could not respond to the queries as he took permission from the Committee to allow him take his leave to attend to other State matters. Assistant Inspector of Police (AIG) in charge of Budget, Abdulsami Iyaji, who stood in for the IG, while  responding  to the queries said in June 2009, an officer was issued a pistol was attacked and killed by robbers in Lagos.

According to him, the robbers went away with the pistol, while the officer that was issued woth the second pistol was declared missing in action.

On the third pistol, Iyaji said the affected officer, while on official assignment lost it during an attack by a gang of armed robbers, while the fourth pistol was lost in an hotel robbery attack on the Inspector it was issued to in February 2008 in Lagos.

He however said the affected inspector was indicted and sanctioned. On the missing cash exhibits, AIG Iyaji said an officer, who failed to give account of N928,000 was investigated and arraigned in court even after retirement.

On the other hand, he said while N100,000 cash exhibit was given to the rightful owner,  N720,000 was erroneously stated as it was actually N250,000, which he said was still available and in custody of the police.

Furthermore, Iyaji denied the existence of a case of a Dell laptop worth N250,000, saying  there was no such record in the Nigeria Police. He however noted that there was a fire outbreak somewhere in Police warehouse, which  might have consumed the exhibit during the incident.