As our headline, which is the title of a novel suggests, the lid was blown off the corrupt three-year administration of the former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, yesterday when a police commissioner and others were arrested with millions of naira in a luggage. Apart from confirming the scandal, the new police hierarchy led by Mr. Mike Okiro, also ordered the detention of the police officer and other aides of the former IGP arrested in connection with the loot.
P.M.News investigations revealed that the drama started when a police aide of Ehindero was arrested when he went into the IGP’s office and brought out a travel bag said to belong to Ehindero.
The new IGP, Mike Okiro, who was in the office at the time, was said to have ordered that the bag be searched.
On searching the bag, millions of naira in both local and foreign currencies, worth N27 million, were allegedly found in it.
On interrogation, the aide confessed to Okiro that it was Ehindero who asked him to bring the bag and that the money belonged to the former police boss.
The arrested aide also reportedly identified other police officers keeping various sums of police money in their offices.
This revelation led to the arrest of the Commissioner of Police in charge of Budget, Mr. Sunday Obaniyi, who was reportedly found stuffing millions of naira in local and foreign notes worth N200 million into a box in his office.
Obaniyi allegedly confessed during interrogation that the money belonged to Ehindero and he was immediately taken to Okiro who ordered his detention.
Those arrested are currently being detained on the 7th floor of the Louis Edet Police Headquarters in Abuja.
Police sources told P.M.News that the new police boss, Okiro, was particularly irked that Ehindero left behind N4 million in the police account only for him to send some officer to cart away millions of naira.
Investigations revealed further that Ehindero waited this late to remove his loot from his office because he never thought he could be removed so hastily by the Yar’Adua administration.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was said to have assured him that Yar’Adua had granted him a two-month tenure extension but was shocked when Yar’Adua asked him to hand over to the next senior police officer.
Sources at the police headquarters in Abuja described Ehindero as another police officer worse than the disgraced former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun.
The song on the lips of many policemen interviewed this morning on the startling revelations was ‘Oga na thief man’.
P.M.News reports that Ehindero’s two-year tenure as police boss was characterized by massive corruption and unresolved assassinations.
It was during his tenure that Engineer Funsho Williams, a PDP chieftain in Lagos, was killed by unknown assassins.
Up till now, the police are yet to bring the killers to book.
Ehindero also made questionable promotions in the force while he held sway.
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