“I Didn’t Steal Police Vehicles” – Former Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase

The immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase on Monday dismissed as lies the claim by his successor, Ibrahim Idris that he carted away 24 vehicles belonging to the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, while retiring.

Idris had told reporters at the weekend that Arase went away with 24 police vehicles while each of the seven Deputy Inspectors-General of Police, who retired alongside him, also carted away between seven and eight cars.

The acting Inspector-General of Police, IGP, who said he had written Arase to return the cars, which included two official bullet-proof BMW 7 series cars, stated that the retired police chief and his DIGs were yet to return the vehicles.

“If you look through the windows of my former office and from the report from my (Force) transport officer, you would see cars but a week to the day I would resume, all these cars disappeared,” he had said.

But in a statement issued from London, United Kingdom, where he went for his son’s graduation, the ex-IGP denied getting any letter from Idris since he has been out of the country, stressing that his successor should cross check his handover notes which contains whatever information is needed on the vehicles bought by the police.

Arase asserted that all vehicles bought by the police under him were distributed to the state commands and other appropriate units of the Nigeria Police Force.

He said in the statement, “I suspect there must be a disconnect somewhere because every information needed by my successor are provided in my hand-over notes. I’m also not aware that any letter was written to me because if there was any dropped in my house, someone would have alerted me.

“It’s unfortunate that this matter is being made a media issue because my successor has my telephone number and could have called me for any clarification or even sent me a text message rather than addressing the media on an issue well documented in my hand-over notes.”