Retired Commissioner of Police faces dismissal over utterances

Immediate past Plateau State Commissioner of Police, Mr Dipo Ayeni, may be sanctioned and dismissed from the force after serving for 35 years.

This followed what police authorities described as unguarded utterances during his pullout/farewell parade in Jos, the state capital, on December 10.

To this end, the police hierarchy, through the Force Secretary, Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), Azumi Dan Doma, has in a query, asked Ayeni to explain the rationale behind such utterances in a query issued him.

Police sources informed Saturday Tribune, on Friday, that Ayeni might lose his pension entitlements, which is tantamount to dismissal, if he failed to give satisfactory explanations for his actions.

The source revealed that although Ayeni is retired now, as of the time he made the statements, he was still in police uniforms.

Ayeni had, during the parade, reportedly condemned the mode of promotion in the police, stressing that in the name of reform, promotion was done with conspiracy between the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the Police Service Commission (PSC).

According to him, the known criteria for promotion in Nigeria, particularly seniority and merit, had been jettisoned.

Ayeni maintained that promotion had become a reward for parochial loyalty to the IGP and Chairman of PSC, questioning the justification in the promotion of some officers to the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Police, recently, by the PSC.

Consequently, the IGP directed that he be queried for acts of misconduct, raging from breach of confidence/unauthorised disclosure of official information, falsehood/prevarication to insubordination.

Below is an excerpt from the query entitled, ‘Query for Serious Misconduct,’ sent through the AIG Zone 4, Makurdi.

“It has been brought to the knowledge of the Inspector-General of Police that on 10th December, 2012 at Rwang Pam Stadium, Jos, while delivering your pullout/farewell parade speech to officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force, with the press and members of the public in attendance, you made some derogatory and uncomplimentary statements about the Nigeria Police Force and its leadership. You went further to denigrate members of the police management team as if you had a score to settle with them.

Tribune