By Adadainfo
Seven police officers serving in Imo State Police Command have been dismissed for various offences, including extortions.
This was contained in a release by the state police command, signed by its police public relations officer, CSP Michael Abattam, and made available to adadareporters.com in Owerri on Thursday.
The arrest, according to Abattam, was sequel to reports of police brutality, harassments, extortion, illegal checking of phones and flagrant disobedience to the IGP’s directives on extortion and incivility to members of the public.
The affected officers are F/No. 462315 Sgt. Ohakim Chibuzo; F/No. 505455 Sgt. Irome Finian; F/No. 505592 Sgt. George Osueke; F/No. 511966 Cpl. Kelechi Onuegbu; F/No. 512320 Cpl. Nwagoro Isidore; F/No. 528165 PC Nwadike Stephen, and F/No. 528156 PC Ihemtuge Plastidus. They were found culpable for discreditable conduct, corrupt practices and leaving beat.
Abattam said, “The ex-policemen were arrested on 08/11/2022 at about 1300hrs in a bank at Umuahia, Abia State, in the course of performing illegal duty outside their jurisdiction and conspiracy to extort money from an innocent victim.
“They were defaulted, tried and found guilty of the charges levelled against them, thus were summarily dismissed and charged to Magistrates’ Court, Owerri, with the charge sheet number: No. OW/746C/2022.”
Against this backdrop, the state commissioner of police directed all area commanders, heads of departments (HODs), divisional police officers (DPO) and tactical teams commanders of the various units in the command ‘to warn their operatives against indulging in sharp practices as any police officer found complicit will be made to face disciplinary actions’.
He directed the officers in-charge of the Inspector-General of Police X-Squad Unit and the commissioner of police monitoring unit ‘to commence a high-level monitoring of the police officers within and outside the metropolis in order to forestall any unprofessional conduct by police officers’.
He further warned officers and men to be professional and uphold international standard best practices in the discharge of their duty.
The CP, in the release, further appealed to members of the public to ‘ensure proper conduct at all times in their encounters with police officers to avoid infractions which may be subject to prosecution’.
He also ‘advised the public to use the command’s emergency control room numbers, 08034773600 or 08098880197, in times of distress for quick intervension’.
