Disquiet over the weekend gripped the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters after details emerged of how Inspector-General Kayode Egbetokun has been victimising officers to shield members of a cartel notorious for hauling suspicious new banknotes from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The interstate syndicate’s operation was disrupted after four inspectors identified a suspicious consignment at Abuja airport on August 26, 2023, Peoples Gazette heard from security sources briefed on the matter.
Five suspects were subsequently taken into custody, The Gazette learnt, leading to a weeks-long financial crimes investigation.
The suspects, who described themselves only as ‘contractors’ without elaborating, provided statements to the police detailing how long they have been in the tawdry business but without providing the identities of the CBN staff they worked with to move out the cash from the apex bank’s vault.
They told the police that they had been operating for years —even before the naira redesign in 2022— transporting cash notes from the CBN in Abuja to Lagos. The suspects, however, failed to state the purpose of the stacks of mint notes in their possession.
They had bundles of N500 and N200 notes going up to tens of millions of naira and were trying to load the money into a Lagos-bound aircraft at the domestic wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja in a way that further aroused the suspicion of security agents.
Just as the suspects were about to be charged, the IGP monitoring unit showed up to take over the case. The five suspects, including their ringleader Andrew Ejah, were extracted from AIG Zone 7 and subsequently released.
However, suspects refused to take back the money, claiming it had been depleted from N75 million to N32 million and that more than half of the money was gone. Their claims led the IG to arrest and detain the four police inspectors who carried out their arrest.
The first orderly room trial was conducted in December 2023, and the inspectors —Ekende Edwin, Esther Okafor, Patrick Nwande and Talabi Kayode — were exonerated given that the activities of the suspects were not only suspicious but their statements were also contradictory.
The first trial found the officers not guilty of the allegations of exhibit tampering, meaning there was no evidence the officers stole from the cash the suspects were transporting.
The trial also determined that there was no receipt documenting how much the suspects were transporting.
So, it was hard to rely solely on the suspects’ statements regarding the purported total sum and how much of it was claimed to be missing. The first trial outcome was on December 13 with reference number 7370/SPM/FHQ/ABJ/VOL.15/98.
The suspects provided a statement to the police stating that they got the money from the CBN vault but won’t be able to mention the person who handed over the cash to them from the CBN. Their statements, which no official of the apex bank could corroborate, led to the inspectors’ exoneration.
A spokeswoman for the CBN did not return a request seeking clarification as to whether or not the bank was aware of the operation of Mr Ejah’s gang.
Dissatisfied with the first trial’s outcome, Mr Egbetokun ordered a second trial, but the verdict remained the same. There was no sufficient evidence to link the alleged stolen funds to the inspectors.
The outcome of the second trial, released on February 20, 2024, was referenced 6350/SPM/FHQ/ABJ/VOL.11/105.
Still, the police chief appeared obstinate. Mr Egbetokun ordered a third orderly room trial, fuelling disquiet from the police hierarchy to the rank-and-file who wondered why the IGP was unwilling to accept the trial’s verdict, given they were his own men.
It was unclear why Mr Egbetokun did not back off the low-level police officers, particularly after two trials had cleared them of any wrongdoing.
His conduct has fuelled speculations about whether he has a stake in the matter and was ready to sacrifice his own junior colleagues to appease a cabal ruffled about the syndicate’s operations being busted.
That Mr Ejah, the suspects’ ringleader, admitted that their currency hauling activities have gone undetected for years even during the tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari, indicates that there were powerful men of influence pulling the strings behind the scene.
Mr Ejah did not return a request seeking comments. It was unclear if he had a legal representative in the matter.
It would not be the first time the police chief had been accused of pandering to high-profile citizens. HEDA, an anti-corruption group, in April, rebuked Mr Egbetokun for withdrawing police officers attached to the Kano Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission.
The commission was investigating fraud allegations against APC national chair, Abdullahi Ganduje when the police officers providing security to the facility and officials were recalled.
“It is deeply troubling that law enforcement resources are being redirected away from combating corruption and instead appear to be utilised to obstruct investigations into high-profile individuals and undermine accountability,” the statement signed by HEDA and two other civil rights groups stated.
The groups advised the IGP to operate an independent security force void of interference from men of influence.
Still, Mr Egbetokun’s conduct and order of a third trial angered the police’s hierarchy, who could not fathom why the police chief seemed determined to throw the inspectors under the bus over the unsubstantiated claims of multimillion-naira cash transporters.
“The IG should have backed down, but he kept chasing the officers because he was offended they did their job,” a senior police officer told The Gazette under anonymity from Force Headquarters over the weekend. “We have reported him to the PSC because we cannot sit down watching an IG that is so blatantly corrupt to the point of punishing officers who should have been rewarded for doing the job they were tasked to do.”
“The IG was the one who exposed himself,” the top officer added. “He should blame only himself for this scandal.”
Mr Egbetokun did not immediately return comments on the matter. The police spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, has yet to respond to The Gazette’s enquiries as well.
It is unclear how the president will handle the situation because the IGP is his loyalist, whom he has known for years. Mr Egbetokun served as Mr Tinubu’s orderly during his time as governor of Lagos.
THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN PEOPLES GAZETTE
