But recent events have shown such perception might be far from the truth.
A few years ago, embattled deputy commissioner of police, Abba Kyari, was seen by many as a hero fighting for the interest of Nigerians.
But recent events have shown such perception might be far from the truth.
The once decorated officer is gradually become a subject of scorn due to the numerous allegations of corruption and human rights abuses against him.
The latest of such was his arrest by the Nigeria Police Force after he was declared wanted by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for selling cocaine consignment seized by IRT operatives from drug barons at the Enugu airport in January this year.
Femi Babafemi, the spokesperson of the NDLEA, had said the anti-drug agency decided to declare Kyari wanted because he did not honour the invitation sent to him.
The NDLEA said an investigation has revealed that Kyari is a member of a drug syndicate that operates across the globe.
The shocking revelation comes amid the police chief's controversial involvement with self-confessed serial internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi.
In July 2021, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed how Kyari allegedly collaborated with Hushpuppi to jail one of the latter’s associates after a dispute over a $1.1million scam on a Qatari businessman.
The FBI also alleged that the embattled social media celebrity sent money to Kyari via a third person’s bank account and hosted him in his Dubai apartment.
According to the US Department of Justice, a criminal complaint initiated the prosecution of Hushpuppi as court documents showed that Abbas, 37, pleaded guilty.
The United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, had issued an arrest warrant against Kyari.
Hushpuppi has since pleaded guilty to the charges and if convicted risks a 20-year-jail term, three-year supervision upon completion of jail term, and monetary restitution to the tune of $500,000 or more.
The court documents also outlined a dispute among members of the Hushpuppi conspiracy, which allegedly prompted him to arrange to have an individual identified as ‘co-conspirator’ Kelly Chibuzor Vincent, jailed in Nigeria by DCP Kyari.
Following the allegations, the top detective was suspended and a panel was set up by the Inspector-General of Police to probe the FBI allegations.
But Kyari denied the allegations, claiming that his “hands are clean”.
The recent development has further raised questions about the purported integrity of the Nigerian police officer.
Amid the ensuing outrage trailing the latest allegation Kyari, SaharaReporters examines how the officer had been engulfed in similar situations in the past.
In October 2020, a businessman, Afeez Mojeed, petitioned the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry investigating the disbanded police unit, Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
Mojeed had alleged that in 2014, Kyari, who was the Officer-in-Charge of SARS in Lagos, detained him for 14 days and extorted him of millions of naira.
In a petition filed on October 22, 2020, through Salawu Akingbolu & Co, Mojeed’s counsel, and addressed to the newly formed judicial panel of inquiry and restitution for victims of SARS-related abuses in Lagos, Kyari and his officers were accused of forcefully taking about 32 items from Mojeed’s house during a raid in 2014.
In the petition, Mojeed said his ordeal began on the night of October 18, 2014, when four gun-wielding policemen from SARS broke into his house.
“They forcefully took his wedding ring and that of his wife from them, opened their wardrobe and took the sum N280,000 and the sum of N50,000 was also taken from his car, after which the Honda Accord (2008) model was seized and taken away till today,” the petition read.
Phones, landed properties, cheque books, bank cards and other valuable documents were allegedly taken from his house.
He was later “arraigned on a trump-up charge” of stealing N97 million and for over one year, the matter was in court, the police “never showed up or brought any witness”.
After several adjournments, the court reportedly struck out the charge against him.
According to the petition, while in detention, “the police under the supervision and threat of Abba Kyari (OC SARS) forced him to sign three Zenith Bank cheques in the sum of N150,000 each making N450,000 in total on October 22 – 23, 2014 and gave the sum to one Alabi Olawale Nurudeen who is also one of their cronies to withdraw”.
The police also allegedly obtained password to his bank card with which they withdrew another N395,000 from his account between October 20 to 23, 2014.
Allegedly on the directive of Kyari, Mojeed was taken by “one Inspector Fola, Corporal Bolu and Corporal Akeem to Diamond Bank Ajah branch on October 23 and 24, 2014 to forcefully transfer the sum of 41 Million and N800,000 respectively from his corporate account M. Mateen Concepts into the account of one Obinna Edward, whom our client had never seen or heard of before, after which they shared the money.
“All these acts perpetrated on our client were exhibited with serious injuries inflicted on him due to a series of slaps and beatings for them to get access to his ATM password, signature on cheques and also transfer from his account.”
Mojeed’s counsel said when he confronted Kyari in his then office in Ikeja on why he would seize his money and properties without a court order, Kyari reportedly said he had kept the money as an exhibit that Mojeed was an internet fraudster and that was why they took the money from him.
Kyari was also accused of attempting to connive with Mojeed’s counsel to further extort him.
“He also went further that there was another N15 million in another account, that the counsel should cooperate with him to take it the way they took N41 million and a sum of N5 million would be given to him while they would take N10 million,” the petition read.
The counsel was allegedly threatened over the refusal to “cooperate” with Kyari.
In a report by Premium Times on January 21, 2019, Kyari's team was accused of taking over multi-billion naira properties of a suspected kidnapper who was killed by the police in 2018.
The Nigerian Human Rights Commission said in an October 2018 petition to the then Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris that the IRT, led by Abba Kyari, a deputy police commissioner, had been illegally depleting the asset of Collins Ezenwa, a suspected kidnapper who was gunned down in January 2018.
Kyari had said Ezenwa was a notorious kidnapper who had committed untold atrocities before he was killed.
The police in Imo State accused Ezenwa, a former police corporal, of leading a syndicate of deadly abductors. He was killed during an exchange of gunfire along the Enugu-Owerri Expressway.
Ezenwa was riding in a vehicle with two of his cousins when he was killed, and the police accused the trio of being kidnappers and circulated gory images of their brutal killings on the Internet.
Kyari and his team members were said to have taken over Ezenwa's properties worth billions of naira.
A hotel linked to Ezenwa in Enugu was estimated at N220,000,000. He also had two duplexes and eight blocks of flats worth a combined N180 million, according to the NHRC petition.
The victim, who was a police corporal before he resigned also had a fleet of exotic vehicles. Other properties of Ezenwa have also been identified in Imo and Abia States, estimating his worth in billions.
Kyari and his team also victimised Gift Ezenwa, the deceased’s widow, and other members of the family, while also depleting the properties he left behind without any court order whatsoever.
Both NHRC and Amnesty International said Ezenwa was killed by the police special anti-robbery squad in Imo State, but Kyari’s IRT only took over the matter in a desperate plot to take over his properties.
Kyari, however, denied victimising Ezenwa's wife and her child or seizing their properties without due process.
He, however, later said he had the powers to confiscate the properties without a court order under Armed Robbery and Firearms Act, a process of government enrichment which rights advocates criticised as indistinguishable from robbery.
He was quoted as saying, “He was a kidnapper as big as ‘Evans. We have been working to track other members of his syndicate since he was killed and we were called to take over the case.”
He eventually said Gift Ezenwa was arrested and detained for weeks because she was a suspect in the alleged crimes of her late husband, and was granted tentative bail without charges as a nursing mother. He was, however, unable to explain why his team could not secure a court order for forfeiture a year after Ezenwa was killed.