The Nation Newspaper

Tag: OFFICER

  • IGP convenes strategic conference on insecurity with top officers

    IGP convenes strategic conference on insecurity with top officers

    President Ahmed Bola Tinubu is set to inaugurate a conference on how to ensure internal security in the country.

    Acting Inspector – General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun yesterday advised the organization of the Fourth Edition of the Conference and Retreat for Senior Police Officers, as part of his firm commitment to ensuring internal security stability and creating a secure environment conducive for the implementation of the Federal Government’s policies.

    The conference themed ‘Fostering Economic Prosperity, Social Integration and Political Development through Enhanced Internal Security Mechanism’ is scheduled to take place from October 30th to November 1st, 2023, at the Landmark Event Centre, Owerri, Imo State.

    According to a statement issued by the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, the conference and retreat will bring together Senior Police Officers of the rank of Deputy Inspectors-General of Police, Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, and Commissioners of Police.

    Adejobi said: “Moreover, it will involve the participation of carefully selected security management experts from across the globe, fostering peer review and the exchange of ideas on four prominent topics under four syndicates viz Service Scheme for the Nigeria Police Force; Professionalizing the Force Criminal Investigations Department (FCID); Re-orientation Programme for Officers and Men of the Nigeria Police Force; and Police Pension Scheme: Review of Changes in Pension Scheme and Suggestion of Further Changes.

    “The retreat will also serve as a platform for senior officers of the Force to engage with key officials from sister security agencies, national and international development partners on in-depth discussions and strategic planning to enhance internal security mechanisms within the nation.

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    “The Conference and Retreat anticipates the presence of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who will inaugurate the Conference and deliver the keynote address. Furthermore, distinguished guests expected at the event include State Governors, Service Chiefs, Heads of other Security Agencies, the President of INTERPOL, past Inspectors-General of Police, Traditional Rulers, and other Community Leaders including the youths, the press and CLOs.”

    Adejobi said to ensure the seamless organization of a successful and purpose-driven conference and retreat, the Inspector-General of Police is collaborating with Matchmakers Consult International.

    He said the IGP while encouraging the active engagement of all senior police officers in the country in this momentous occasion, urged them to share their valuable perspectives to bolster collaborative endeavours in fortifying internal security.

    The police spokesman, while quoting the IGP stressed that: “by promoting economic growth, societal cohesion, and political progress, the police can assume a central position in the advancement and prosperity of Nigeria”.

  • Officer, 13 soldiers killed by Boko Haram buried in Kaduna

    A captain of the Nigerian Army and 13 soldiers recently ambushed and killed by Boko Haram insurgents   in the North East were  yesterday laid to rest  at Commonwealth Military Cemetry, Kaduna.

    They were drawn from the One Mechanized Division of the army in Kaduna.

    The had run  into the Boko Haram  ambush while on escort duty along Damaturu/Maiduguri  road on December 24,2018.

    Speaking at the burial, the General Officer Commanding, (GOC) One Division, Maj-Gen Mohammed Mohammed, said the deceased “paid the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of this great country.”

    But he said they  did not die in vain and said:  “We will remember them forever as brave soldiers.”

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    Continuing, Mohammed said: “These enthusiastic and inspiring men, exemplified the values of our nation and the military which are loyalty, courage, selfless service, respect, honour and dignity.

    He assured  soldiers still engaged in battle with the insurgents of the ” unwavering support of the Chief of Army Staff and the leadership of our dear nation in ensuring that you are provided with necessary equipment as well as adequate welfare to carry out your duty effectively and efficiently.”

    The Commandant of Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Major Gen. Adeniyi Oyebade, who was at the burial approved the sum of  N500,000 (five hundred thousand naira) to each of the family of the slain soldiers

  • Officer and gentleman

    •Gen Salihu Ibrahim, who died at 83, reminds us of what soldiery should be

    It is not often that a soldier in the mould of late Lt. General Salihu Ibrahim happens on a generation. In a profession of hubris and esprit de corps, soldiers know that violence and conflict set them apart from other callings. Salihu was a tranquil soldier as they come, which does not detract from his awareness of his role as a gun man, and man of war. After all, he was a soldier in the throes of the Nigerian civil war, and he rose to the acme of military postings as the chief of army staff of the Nigerian armed forces.

    No one could rise in that setting without a tolerance for blood and death, and even a certain amount of butchery as self-defence. Yet, Gen Ibrahim was able to combine the intrepid with the human in his acquittal of his duties as a Nigerian soldier.

    With his pedigree, many would expect his profile to be marked by episodes of conspiracy, intrigue and bullishness. Nothing exemplified his personality like the story of his near retirement when Gen Ibrahim Babangida was military president of the country.

    In the 1985 coup that swept MuhammaduBuhari out of power and installed Babangida as the nation’s ruler, General Ibrahim did not play a role even though he was a general officer commanding a division. His non-role was perceived as inimical and he was listed for retirement. Gen Ibrahim was astounded and wanted an audience with the commander-in-chief. But General Babangida would not grant him. General Ibrahim persistent, seeking at least, a final farewell with his commander-in-chief.

    General Babangida eventually relented and granted him the audience, explaining to him that he did not take part in the coup and did not cooperate with the mutineers. Gen. Ibrahim mildly protested and explained that he had no knowledge of the mutiny, and if that was the reason for his retirement, it would not be fair.

    Gen Babangida called for Brigadier Joshua Dogonyaro who was a frontline player of the coup. In a dramatic twist, Dogonyaro confirmed Gen Ibrahim’s innocence and quipped that he (Dogonyaro) deliberately kept Gen. Ibrahim out of the fray, posing the question: “who would have taken care of our wives and children if the coup had failed?”

    On that testimony, Gen Ibrahim’s retirement was rescinded and he rose to the top of the army before he retired. Gen Ibrahim was so trusted that even his peers did not want to sully his record with a rebellion. His penchant for discipline and professionalism inspired his phrase, “an army of anything goes.”

    He was a soldier in an era when the soldier had an image of torrid corruption, gangsters style and impunity. In fact, his peers and generation of soldiers are credited with the rot and decay in our society and institutions. Hence it made sense when President Buhari paid a glowing tribute to him and remarked that, “it is a matter for great pride that outstanding officers like General Ibrahim served the Nigerian army.”

    Even his job as chief of army staff was not without its complications. When his predecessor as chief of army staff, Gen. SaniAbacha, became defence minister and chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, he remained calm when the former would not vacate the flag House, the official residence of the COAS. Babangida stirred matters by appointing a new chief of army staff but Gen. Abacha would not allow Gen Aliyu assume office until Gen Ibrahim retired with honour.

    Born in 1935, he joined the army in 1956. And after his retirement in 1993, he is one of a few men of his status who did not muddy their image with politicalpartisanship.

  • APC national officer urges Buhari to dissolve NDDC board

    APC national officer urges Buhari to dissolve NDDC board

    A National Officer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Yekini Nabena, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to dissolve the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

    Nabena, in an open letter to the President dated February 26, described the continuous stay in office of the current board of NDDC as a sit-tight syndrome.

    Nabena, who is a National Ex-Officio member of APC from Bayelsa State, claimed that  the tenure of the board formally ended last December, adding that it had no legitimacy to remain in office.

    He noted that the tenures of the NDDC Managing Director/Chief Executive, Nsima Ekere, and Chairman of the commission’s board, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, expired since last year, following the terms of their appointment and the law establishing NDDC.

    He said the terms and the law explicitly stated that they were to complete their respective state’s tenures.

    “While Ndoma-Egba was appointed to serve out the tenure of fellow Cross River State indigene, Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw, Ekere was chosen to complete the tenure of fellow Akwa Ibom citizen, Mr. Bassey Dan-Abia. Ewa-Henshaw and Dan-Abia were inaugurated in 2013 for a four-year term that ought to have ended last December”, he said.

    The APC leader maintained that Ndoma-Egba and Ekere’s continued stay in office was fraudulent and a demonstration of contemptuous.

    He said that Bayelsa State, which ought to have produced a new board chairman and other NDDC states were being shortchanged under the current situation.

    He also carpeted the managing director and the chairman for allegedly applying manipulative schemes to change the rules and perpetuate themselves in office.

    He said:  “The resort to sit-tight, crude propaganda and manipulation does not only display an arrogant contempt for the law guiding the commission, but it also offends basic decency and public morality.

    “In fact, it amounts to administrative fraud. Any further day the board exists is tantamount to allowing wilful iniquity and illegality to run riot. Moreover, the fact that they have been paying themselves all manner of allowances even after the expiration of their legal tenure is criminal.”

    Nabena urged Buhari to  redress the anomaly to restore sanity to the commission’s leadership and save the image of his government and its campaign to bring about change.

    He said: “The Act establishing the NDDC provides for a rotation of its leadership among the nine NDDC states of Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Abia, Imo, and Ondo.”

  • Officer, three ‘kidnappers’ killed in gun battle

    Officer, three ‘kidnappers’ killed in gun battle

    •One rescued 

    A military officer and three suspected kidnappers were yesterday killed by troops on Operation Cat Race in Okene, Kogi State.

    The deceased were trying to rescue a kidnap victim when they were caught in a cross fire.

    It was gathered that the incident occurred about 8 am, at a check point on the Okene-Ajaokuta road.

    An unidentified man, accompanied by the officers, went to deliver a ransom. Eyewitness said the suspects opened fire on sighting them.

    The victim, who chairs Always Petroleum and Gas, Otinau Momohjimoh, was shot in the arm.

    He is receiving treatment at a private hospital.

    One of the suspects was captured alive.

    A source added that the officer, who got married some months back, died in hospital.

    His body was deposited at the mortuary of the General Hospital, Okene.

    Items recovered from the suspects include charms and ammunition.

    The spokesman of the command’s Army Record, Capt. Weri Finikumor, said he would soon address reporters.

  • Police: an officer is permitted to marry another officer

    Police: an officer is permitted to marry another officer

    The Police have said no law stops an officer in service from marrying another police personnel on officer cadre. 

    The reaction came following a report credited to Inspector-General (IG) Ibrahim Idris claiming that he was free to have romantic affair with any policewoman.

    There are three cadres in the Force: Rank and File cadre where constable to sergeant falls, Inspectorate cadre where the Inspectors fall and officers cadre.

    Police personnel from the rank of an Assistant Superintendent of Police up to Inspector-General of Police fall under officer’s cadre.

    The Force Spokesman CSP Jimoh Moshood, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, described the report credited to the IG as untrue and misleading.

    Moshood said: “What the IGP said in the document submitted to the Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating the spurious allegation against the IG is that no law stops a police officer in service to marry another police officer on an officer cadre.

    “He never said I’m free to have romantic affairs with police women,” he said.

  • Officer escorting hemp vehicle held

    Officer escorting hemp vehicle held

    Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have apprehended a mobile police officer escorting a vehicle loaded with 30 bags of weeds suspected to be cannabis sativa (Indian hemp) out of Lokoja.

    NDLEA Kogi State Commander Mr. Idris Bello said yesterday the officer was held while escorting the illegal substance in a red Toyota Picnic car, marked Kogi KNA 185 LG.

    He said the vehicle, alleged to be owned by a local government, was intercepted about 2:30 pm yesterday at a road intersection in Lokoja.

    Bello said although the driver escaped, officials of the agency apprehended the policeman.

    The commander, who refused to reveal the identity of the policeman, said NDLEA would report to the police authorities.

    He said the vehicle and weeds were impounded.

    The Nation learnt that the policeman and vehicle conveying the substances were intercepted at NTA roundabout.

  • Officer escorting hemp vehicle held

    Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have apprehended a mobile police officer escorting a vehicle loaded with 30 bags of weeds suspected to be cannabis sativa (Indian hemp) out of Lokoja.

    NDLEA Kogi State Commander Mr. Idris Bello said yesterday the officer was held while escorting the illegal substance in a red Toyota Picnic car, marked Kogi KNA 185 LG.

    He said the vehicle, alleged to be owned by a local government, was intercepted about 2:30 pm yesterday at a road intersection in Lokoja.

    Bello said although the driver escaped, officials of the agency apprehended the policeman.

    The commander, who refused to reveal the identity of the policeman, said NDLEA would report to the police authorities.

    He said the vehicle and weeds were impounded.

    The Nation learnt that the policeman and vehicle conveying the substances were intercepted at NTA roundabout.

  • Man arraigned for ‘stabbing’ para-military officer, sibling

    Man arraigned for ‘stabbing’ para-military officer, sibling

    A MAN has been arraigned in court by operatives of the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit (Task Force) for assaulting an officer of the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC), Aderemo Ramoni and his sibling, Adeyemi Ridwan at Fiditi Street, Ilasamaja, Lagos.

    Chigozie Okoro was docked yesterday at the Lagos State Mobile Court sitting at Oshodi.

    Okoro pleaded not guilty to a three-count charge of assault, breach of peace and obstruction of government’s official.

    The suspect stabbed the two brothers with scissors at different spots on their heads after he was caught to have scaled a fence into a neighbour’s compound at Fiditi Street, Ilasamaja, Lagos on Wednesday.

    A statement by the task force said: When the officer who was first attacked by the suspect could not handle him alone after he was stabbed, he called his sibling who assisted him and later took him to the nearest police station.

    Ramoni and Ridwan were treated at a medical centre and referred to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) for examination due to complications over injury in their heads.

    Magistrate Tosin Ojuromi granted the suspect N100,000  bail with two sureties in the like sum. Each of the sureties must be gainfully employed with evidence of tax payment to the Lagos State Government.

    The case has been adjourned to October 23.

     

  • A’Ibom Police Command to sanction officer for attacking sanitation court over daughter

    The Akwa Ibom State Police Command has commenced investigation into an alleged attack on a sanitation court in Uyo by a team of heavily-armed policemen led by the officer in charge of the command’s Anti-Robbery Unit, SP Idorenyin Akpabio.

    The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Bala Elkaner who disclosed this to our correspondent on telephone yesterday, said the Commissioner of Police, Zubairu Umar was aware of the incident.

    SP Akpabio, a relative of the immediate past governor of the state, now Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, is said to have led two patrol vehicles filled with policemen to attack and disrupt proceedings at the sanitation court which was in session at Nkemba Street, Uyo at the weekend.

    Our correspondent gathered that a girl, said to be the daughter of SP Akpabio was one of the 23 sanitation defaulters apprehended by sanitation taskforce officials attached to the State Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources during last Saturday’s monthly sanitation exercise and subsequently arraigned before the sanitation court.

    It was learnt the girl, who was taken to the sanitation court along with other defaulters, had reportedly insulted the court officials, threatening that her father was a senior police officer in the state.

    She reportedly made good her threats when she put a telephone call across to her father, who initially stormed the court with 6 heavily armed policemen who cocked their rifles threatening to open fire at the sanitation taskforce and court officials.