N500m Scam: Sack Okiro Now, PSC Official Tells Buhari
The Principal Administrative Officer, Police Service Commission (PSC), Aaron Kaase, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Chairman of the Commission, Mike Okiro, over alleged N500 million scam.
Kaase in an open letter to Buhari posted on an online news portal, said that as a fall-out to his letters accusing Okiro of fraud and gross corruption, the PSC chairman has unleashed the police on him and his colleague, Raymond Amase.
He said: “On Tuesday and Thursday last week, we were guests of the police at the office of the Inspector-General of Police in Garki, Abuja, based on complaint by Okiro accusing us of allegedly leaking official information and defamation of his character”.
”And what is defamation when there is an official and signed petition against you before the anti-graft agencies?” he queried.
He added: ”This is also happening in fragrant disobedience to a court motion on notice in a N500 million suit against Okiro, Suprem Ibitomi and IGP, before Justice O.O. Goodluck of the FCT High Court, Abuja, restraining the respondents from taking any action until the determination of the suit slated for mention on June 30, 2015.”
He also claimed that,” Okiro convened a plenary of the PSC on May 27, 2015 and took a unilateral decision to suspend me from office, backdating the decision to May 21, this year, which was the same day court motion on notice was served on him and the commission.
Kaase said, “I am still amazed as to whether the back-dated decision was forged by one Mr. Ibe, Director Administration and FINANCE of PSC, or whether it was actually a decision of respected members of the Commission including a retired Supreme Court judge.”
HURIWA Cautions Buhari
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has cautioned Buhari against hasty probe on the alleged police fraud levelled against Okiro by Kaase.
A statement made available to LEADERSHIP by the national coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, further revealed that there is a balance of N133. 6 million unspent in the commission’s bank account.
HURIWA said, “The alleged threats to life as raised by the petitioner drew our attention to this matter which made us to probe further upon which we stumbled on some documentations including payment mandates effected with the general election, staff training funding release made to the Police Service Commission from the office of the National Security Adviser to immediate past President Good luck Jonathan, Colonel Sambo Dasuki.”
The statement quoted the media spokesman of the commission, Mr Ikechukwu Ani, as saying that the commission sought for funding in the buildup to 2015 general election but received only N350 million for the training of monitors for the exercise and monitoring of the conduct of policemen deployed for election duties during the elections.