The Nigeria Police has described Senate’s declaration of Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris unfit for public office as “deliberate blackmail, witch-hunt and mischievous.”
In his reaction to the Senate resolution yesterday, Force Public Relations Officers, Moshood Jimoh, accused senators of trying to arm-twist the police boss.
“The action of the Senate in its resolution against the IGP today (yesterday) is a deliberate blackmail, witch-hunting with mischievous motives to arm-twist the IGP to pervert justice in a felonious and serious offenses of criminal conspiracy and unlawful possession of prohibited firearms,” Jimoh said.
He said the IGP was not an enemy of democracy as he has “served meritoriously for above 10 years in the United Nations peace keeping operations in several countries unblemished. The Nigeria Police Force is the first defender of democracy and all democratic institutions in Nigeria and will continue to do so.”
The FPRO said IGP Idris did not shun the Senate when invited, having sent a Deputy Inspector-General of Police to represent him at the hearing, in accordance with the law.
He said: “It is on the basis of the above that when on the 25th of April, 2018, the Senate invited the Inspector-General of Police to appear before it on the 26th of April 2018, in respect of the felonious offenses for which Sen. Dino Melaye was taken into police custody, investigated and arraigned in a court of competent jurisdiction in Lokoja, but because the Inspector-General of Police was on official assignment with the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria to Bauchi on same date, he delegated the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Department of Operations, Assistant Inspector-Generals of Police and some commissioners of police conversant with the matter to brief the Senate.”