Solomon Arase might not find retirement so peaceful after all as he has had a probe ordered against him by his successor Ibrahim Idris.
The current IGP Idris accused Arase of absconding with 24 police vehicles while leaving office. He also went on to accuse the seven Deputy Inspector-Generals of Police, who retired alongside Arase of going away with eight and seven cars each. He claims this has left him with no official car of his own.
He stated that he has called Arase about the matter along with the other DIGs but that he has yet to have the cars back and also set up a special investigative unit to look into the purchase of cars for police officers over the last 3 years and look into how they were shared.
Idris said “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.
“So, what I am telling you is that I have signed a directive to my SIP (I have a special investigation panel, I set it up). It is going to investigate all the vehicle purchases, contributions to the police and the distribution of those vehicles in the last three years; we are going to look into that.
“When I took over, there was no vehicle, even the vehicle I would use. I discovered the last IG went away with 24 vehicles; the DIGs, some of them eight, some of them seven. The IG’s vehicles included two BMW 7 series, one armoured; and he left me with an old car.
“The last time I followed the President with it, he was asking me, ‘what are you doing with this old car’ because if you see the headlight, the thing has changed colour, which means they parked it and rains and everything had fallen on it, but the new ones that were bought, he (Arase) went with all of them; they are part of the 24.
“I wrote back to him and said, we have a policy that says when a policeman retires, if you are an IG, AIG, a CP, you are entitled to some vehicles; please, the extra, return it. Four vehicles are enough for an average human being, but what will you even do with four vehicles; but he took 24 vehicles, including two BMW cars.
“I wrote to him (Arase), I wrote to the DIGs.”