By Samuel Peters

A German-based Nigerian, Dickson Utuke, who alleged N62 million fraudulent enrichment against a serving Police Officer in Lagos, has sent a save-our-soul plea to the Inspector-General of Police, Hafiz Ringim over what he tagged, ‘illegal release of exhibit vehicles’ recovered from the Police Officer. Mr. Utuke had, in October, last year, reported to the Inspector-General of Police monitoring unit at the Force Headquarters, Abuja that he engaged the Inspector serving at Area F, Ikeja, Lagos, and who incidentally is his in-law, in his importation business concerns only for him to divert his hard-earned money into personnel use.

After his petition, the Police boss constituted a crack team of detectives who swung into action by, not only arresting the Police Officer but, recovering all the properties including exotic vehicles he allegedly acquired with the in-law’s money. The items recovered from the Inspectors residence at Adenuga Street, Ahmadiya, Abule-Egba included; a C-Class Mercedes Benz, a Golf-3, a Volkswagen Transport bus and a 95 KV power generating set. They also took note of the remaining items at the POWA Plaza, Warehouse in Alaba International Market. Based on alleged open threat by the Inspector against the complainant, the detectives reportedly insisted on an undertaken by the parties to safeguard and maintain peace between the warring parties. Following this development, the detectives from Abuja packed the exhibits including the vehicles at Elere Police Station at Agege, Lagos while investigations into the main case continued.

Crime Alert gathered that the Inspector-General of Police who was barely a month in office when the issue arose, directed the officers to carry out a discreet but thorough investigation into the allegations and if the Inspector was found wanting, appropriate sanctions that will serve as a deterrent to other such corrupt officers, should be carried out without delay. This development which was widely hailed by both the German-based Nigerian and his friends overseas, made the complaint return back to base to continue with his business believing that justice must certainly take its cause. .

However, late last year, the story took a different dimension, when Dickson returned to the country with his family to celebrate the Christmas with his relatives. They decided to visit one of his buildings which was also in contention with his younger brother and his wife. Soon words went out to the police Inspector that Dickson was at the building premises, he allegedly quickly raced down with some thugs. According to Mr. Utuke, “the thugs who were mainly miscreants from Abule-Egba Bus Stop were about ten in number and they were armed with machetes and bottles. They descended on me and other members of my family and gave us a beaten of our lives. At the end of the torture and beating, our faces were covered with bruises and deep cuts while our cloths were also torn completely. Passers-by who witnessed the battering could not hold back their anger. They hurriedly contacted the police from a nearby station who came to our rescue”.

Meanwhile, few days after Dickson returned to his base in Germany, words filtered out that the Police Inspector was making frantic moves to reclaim the impounded vehicles. This made Mr. Dickson to quickly alert Police authorities in Abuja but his efforts, unfortunately, yielded no results as the Inspector illegally reclaimed his impound items few days later. In fact, all the exhibit vehicles and power generating sets recovered from the Police Officer were secretly released to him while investigations into the case seem to have hit a brick-wall. In a strongly-worded petition to the Inspector-General of Police over the ugly development, Mr. Utuke stated, “ I want to express my profound dismay at the manner at which all items recovered from a police Inspector, regarding a case of fraud perpetrated against my humble self during our business transaction, have been released to him. We quite appreciate the fact that an exhibit can be released on bond to any of the parties but, that would be if the release of the exhibits would not jeopardize the thorough and proper investigation of the matter. In this case, we believe it would because vehicles are perishable goods and they depreciate daily”, he stated.