The Nigeria Police Force has resolved take legal action against online news medium, Sahara reporters, for allegedly claiming that the Inspector General of Police, IGP Muhammad Adamu, was illegally raising money for construction of training school in Nasarawa State.
It explained that the move to initiate legal action against the medium was informed by its report titled ‘Exclusive: How Nigeria’s Inspector-General of Police, Adamu, Illegally Raised Millions of Naira for Construction of Training School in Nasarawa’, where the police boss was reported to be ‘involved in a multi-billion Naira fraudulent scheme’.
As stated, the report which was published by the medium on August 03, 2020, was misleading and aimed to blackmail the police boss and bring image of the force to disrepute.
The police leadership, through a statement by the Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, urged Nigerians to disregard the report as it was farther from the truth and against ethics of journalism profession.
“The publication which referenced several unnamed and unverifiable sources alleged, essentially, that the IGP ‘used his office to unlawfully compel and in fact threaten Mobile Police Commanders into generating millions of Naira monthly through illegal means for the purpose of establishment of a MOPOL Training School in his home town of Endehu in Nasarawa State’.
“The Force wishes to state unequivocally that the publication in its entirety is false and baseless. It was published in the tradition of Sahara Reporters to blackmail and impugn the credibility of strategic leaders of the country in an apparent attempt to advance their ignoble and unpatriotic intentions,” the statement read.
However, the police clarified that the overriding national security consideration on need to strengthen operational capacity of the special forces of police necessitated the establishment of the Police Mobile Training School in Endehu, Nasarawa State.
Mba, through the statement, added that “the allegations that the IGP used his office to threaten Mobile Police Commanders into generating Millions of naira monthly through illegal means for the establishment of the institution is also totally false.
“It is on record that the parcel of land where the institution was sited was donated to the Police with the full complement of the Certificate of Occupancy which the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State publicly presented to the Nigeria Police. The acquisition of the land was, therefore, without any financial commitment by the Police.
“Furthermore, the construction of the facility was achieved with the support of the Nasarawa State Government and well-meaning corporate bodies within the context of their Corporate Social responsibility (CSR). In all instances, all the support so extended was not in cash but in form of donation of materials.
“The only involvement of some Squadron Commanders was to ensure the delivery of some of the construction materials so donated by the corporate bodies. Hence, the allegation that the IGP ‘had each Squadron Commander cough out nothing less than N500,000 monthly for the purpose of erecting different structures in the training school’ is a preposterous and feeble attempt to discredit the innovative reasoning that engendered the successful implementation of the critical national security asset that the facility represents.
“The construction of the project through corporate intervention is a demonstration of the commitment of the Force leadership to meet its obligation to citizens in terms of their safety and security and in furtherance to the Reform agenda of the Nigeria Police Force. It was not established as a personal asset of the IGP. Rather, it is a national security legacy project.
“While members of the public are called upon to discountenance the content of the publication in its entirety, it is to be noted that the Nigeria Police Force has instructed its legal team to initiate legal actions against Sahara Reporters to address the defamatory and libelous components of the report.”
