Crime Fighter as the Criminal

Fri, May 3, 2013

By publisher

11 MIN READ

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Despite its bad image, the Nigeria police force is sinking deeper into the pool of corruption as its members devise new ways of defrauding people of their hard-earned money

|  By Olu Ojewale  |  May 13, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

OLALEKAN Bolarinwa, a businessman, wanted to change the engine of one of his cars. He went to the Central Motor Registry, CMR, at the Police Headquarters, Kam Salem House, Obalelnde, Lagos, to inquire about what he would need to apply for a CMR certificate. The lady officer at the reception told him that he would submit a photocopy of the receipt of the new engine, a sworn affidavit to show that he is the person changing his car engine and a passport photograph.

“But don’t worry, I can do it for you. Bring your passport photograph, a copy of the receipt of the new engine and N4,000 and I will give you a date to come back and collect the paper,” the lady officer said. According to her, the same requirements are needed for anyone who wants to do a change of ownership of vehicle or has just bought a new car.

The CMR office is a revenue collection point for the federal government. But the officers working at the department have also made it a goldmine for themselves. Apart from taking fees to help motorists get the all important paper, there is another method designed by the police to siphon money from motorists into their private pockets. For example, take the case of Ebongabasi Ekpe-Juda, pastor. He had gone to the CMR office to register the new car he had bought so that it would be on the database. He submitted all the necessary papers, but was asked to pay one thousand naira (N1,000) to obtain government revenue collector’s receipt. To his surprise, the registration numbers of nine other vehicles were added to the receipt which was in the name of one of those nine vehicle owners. The receipt showed that they had all the 10 vehicle numbers on the receipt jointly paid one thousand naira, whereas they paid one thousand naira each. When Ekpe-Juda inquired why it was so, he was told that that was the usual practice. But the pastor insisted that he was going to collect a balance of nine hundred naira (N900) because the receipt had shown that he was supposed to pay only one hundred naira (N100). After much argument, on why he would not be a party to such unholy deal, N500 was returned to him. And he reluctantly accepted it. Not many applicants are willing to argue with the police like that, hence, a good number of those who spoke with Realnews said they could not be bothered as long as they were able to get the CMR paper done. “We are afraid to speak out because we may be victimised for speaking out,” a bus driver said.

Realnews learnt that the Lagos CMR office receives as average of 50 applications a week. Given that number, it means that only an average of N5,000 goes to the government coffers every week, while N45,000 goes to private pockets. According to Realnews investigation, the police have also devised various methods of getting applicants to use a police proxy by trying to frustrate efforts of applicants who insist on making a direct application. They sometimes shove aside direct applicants and attend to those that come through their colleagues. Besides, only one of them got the original receipt while others were asked to make do with photo copies. According to sources, when the number has not reached 10 applicants, those applying are made to wait or asked to come back the following day to pick their receipt.

That is not the only avenue that the Police seems to have institutionalised corruption. If you happen to need something like Police Character Certificate, which is required in some embassies to indicate that you are not a convict, you must be ready to pay for it. According to a source who obtained the paper on which his finger prints were recorded, he paid N3,500. No receipt was issued. This, perhaps, shows that no fee was supposed to be paid for the exercise.

“If you expect to get anything free from the police, you must be joking,” said a friend who has done many legitimate businesses with the police in recent times. That was the situation that an estate in Lagos found itself a few months ago. Concerned by the activities of some questionable characters living near the estate, the residents held a meeting and decided to report the matter to the Special Armed Robbery Squad at Government Reservation Area, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, to come on a surprise operation in the area. But they were shocked when the SARS asked them to pay a gratification of N250,000. Thus, the matter was dropped.

That is not all. A few months ago, a Lagos resident at Alagbado, who gave his name simply as Gbola, reported to the police that a fellow was harassing his family. But he was told that for the Police to send an officer with him to investigate the matter he had to pay about N5,000.

Despite the campaign that bail is free, it is also a common knowledge that getting somebody on bail at any police station, one has to grease the palms of officers in charge. According to police sources, the amount one has to pay depends on the gravity of the offence in question. In fact, Realnews learnt that the least that one can pay to release a suspect from police cell is now N5,000.

Tackling the issue of corruption seems to have defied every inspector general, IG, of the Nigeria Police. Mohammed Abubakar, on assuming office as the IG last year, dismantled road check points. But that has not stopped some police officers from cornering some vehicle owners and harassing them to extort money.

But one case that is likely to test the resolve of Abubakar is that involving one of his assistant inspectors-general. On August 1, last year, the Police Service Commission announced, among others, the promotion of eight commissioners of Police to the rank of assistant inspectors-general. One of them was Bala Hassan, who has many petitions written against him.

In one of the petitions, Hassan was accused of ‘conspiracy, forgery and stealing,’ which was brought against him while serving as CP in Rivers State. According to the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, NOPRIN, a non-governmental organisation, a report of the investigation by the Police Special Fraud Unit, indicted him.

One Augustine Okpara, a businessman based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, had petitioned that Hassan, as the CP Rivers State Police Command, illegally auctioned three cars belonging to him. Okpara said Hassan sold one of the cars to himself and sold the remaining two to his friends while the case involving him was still pending in court. Okpara had been involved in a case of fraud reported by the United Bank of Africa, UBA, in 2009. In the cause of the case, the three vehicles were seized and taken to the police custody.

To justify the selling of the cars, Hassan allegedly quoted a fictitious edition of Vanguard newspaper in which he claimed to have advertised the items to be auctioned. But investigators checked and found out that the advertisement was never contained in the quoted edition of the newspaper. But investigations by NOPRIN and the police formation eventually showed that there was no such publication in the quoted edition of Vanguard newspaper.

NOPRIN said that by the time it sent the first set of petitions to the IGP and the PSC in 2010, Hassan had been transferred to the Force Headquarters as CP Legal. From there, he was posted to Abia State Command as CP and later posted, to head the Borno State Police Command. “While no known action was taken by either the previous and current IGP or the PSC in response to the several petitions as well as the report of police investigation which indicted him, the said CP Bala Hasan was rather promoted to the position of an assistant inspector general, AIG, of Police, a position that qualifies and positions him as a possible candidate to be appointed the Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police,” the organisation said it report.

On Hassan’s promotion, NOPRIN said it considered it “an act of debauchery that the PSC could promote such a man who carries a heavy moral baggage rather than sanctioning him as a deterrence.” As if to add salt to the injury, a statement by Ferdinand Ekpe, chief information officer of the commission, said the elevation of the senior officers, was “aimed at giving the nation the security organisation it truly deserved.”

According to NOPRIN, at the instance of another petition by Okpara to the DIG investigations, the Special Fraud Unit, SFU, Lagos, investigated and confirmed that, indeed, the three cars were auctioned during the pendency of investigation and during the period of trial in court. And on December 8, 2010, a letter was sent to Okpara that ‘after a thorough investigation of the case, it was discovered that three vehicles were, indeed, sold through auction by Hassan and that the case file had been sent to the police IG for further action.

“It is quite scandalous that rather than the Police Service Commission, under Mr. Parry Osayande, bringing Mr. Bala Hassan to account for corruption and crime, the commission, a police oversight agency, opted to promote him to AIG thereby promoting corruption, crime and misconduct in the police. This is sheer debauchery!” NOPRIN said. But still no action seemed to have been taken by the police command.

Efforts by Realnews to get Police reactions to these allegations met a brick-wall. Even an email to Frank Mba, deputy police public relations officer, was not answered. But Raphael Fagbohun, a reverend father, and pioneer chaplain of the Nigeria Police Force, said the issue of corruption and indiscipline in the force was a societal issue, which has rubbed off on individuals among them. Speaking at the seventh year anniversary and the formation of the chaplaincy in the NPF April 2, Fagbohun said corruption should not be portrayed as institutional in the force. “Every wise person knew that corruption was a major problem of the country of which the Police Force happens to be a part of with corrupt individuals who are the personnel… Every wise person knows that corruption is Nigeria’s problem and not a police issue,” Fagbohun said.

Michael Askew, director, Pointman Leadership Institute, a United Kingdom-based organisation, traced corruption in the Nigeria police to underfunding of the sector by the government. Speaking in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, recently at a two-day seminar for police officers, Askew asserted that it would be illogical for the police to give their utmost if funds were withheld from them. “Inadequate funding can hamper police efforts in Nigeria. If they do not have the necessary tools to work; you are now providing room for what will aid corruption in the sector,” he said. Askew, a retired superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, UK, said there is a lot of infrastructure for police in the UK. He said what is more surprising is that the Nigeria police officers do not have enough money to put petrol in the police cars.

But that excuse can hardly be sustained. Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government allocated a total of N2.046 billion to the police for vehicle maintenance in the budget. In 2009, the allocation was N700 million and N759 million in 2010. In 2011 and 2012, the allocations were N291 million and N296 million, respectively. In the 2012 budget, N52 million was provided for motorcycles, N203 million for vehicles, N310 million for vans, and N596 million for armoured personnel carriers.

There was also a proposal the police command for N431 million for arms and ammunition, N84 million for video security surveillance systems in Borno, Kano, Oyo, Edo and Anambra states, N52 million for automatic fingerprint identification system, N84 million for forensic and DNA test laboratory, and N241 million for explosive ordinance disposal equipment for the anti-bomb squad.

Other items of expenditure in the 2012 budget were N295 million for anti-riot equipment, N450 million for bullet-proof vests gear, N243 million for anti-terrorism equipment, N165 million for security intelligence equipment, and N271 million for UHF walkie-talkies and rehabilitation of its out-dated analogue UHF communications system.  The budget for barracks’ rehabilitation and construction was N585 million. But these billions have not translated into a functional police system.

According to some senior police officers, who prefer to be anonymous, most divisional police officers are practically running their command from their own pockets because what they receive from the state can hardly sustain them for a week. But in as much as the police would like to blame government for starving them of funds, this does not excuse what they do to defraud innocent citizens of their hard earned money.