By Rotimi Fasan
JUST days after he left office as the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase was all but declared a thief by his successor as IGP, Idris Ibrahim. It was a bizarre and most unexpected indictment that gave one the impression that something must have been fundamentally wrong in the relationship between Arase and Ibrahim. By referring to the state of the relationship between Arase and Ibrahim I do not mean to suggest or be understood as saying that Ibrahim ought to turn a blind eye where he had discovered filth by his predecessor.

IGP Idris

One just thought that the man must have found such level of filth as to make him dispense with all pretence to decency and niceties in leveling his allegation against Mr. Arase, calling the whole world to witness another instance of shame by a public officer. Ibrahim took the unprecedented path of addressing a press conference to lay his charge of unauthorised removal of scores of official vehicles against Arase and other very senior officers, Deputy Inspector Generals and Assistant Inspector Generals that were retired alongside Arase in the aftermath of his appointment as IG.

What is the specific allegation against Arase? That he took more than 20 choice vehicles away with him as part of his retirement benefits. As a tradition, Ibrahim explained at his press conference, very senior officers in the category of IG, DIG and AIG are allowed to leave at retirement with some of the official vehicles assigned to them during service. But his grouse with the Arase team of retirees was that many of them went away with as many as between seven and eight vehicles while Arase himself took the lion share of 27 vehicles, including bullet proof BMWs.

How does one describe this but as outrageous? For a police force whose officers regularly move around in commandeered commercial vehicles even while in the line of important official duties and solicit corporate support in the procurement of vehicles, the reported action of the retired officers constitute a serious threat. Is this a case of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? A clear instance of greed taken too far and bordering on theft of public property?

What could these retired officers mean by their clearance of the best vehicles from the Police headquarters to the extent that their successors are left with nothing to use by way of means of movement but to cast around in the police parking lot for vehicles that have long seen better days, badly rundown jalopies that mock the high office of senior officers? Mr. Ibrahim reported the shock in the eye of President Muhammadu Buhari himself when the IGP joined the president’s convoy in his banger of a service vehicle.

The president wanted to know from what scrap yard the IG got his vehicle. Perhaps that was what informed the IG’s obvious righteous outrage at being given such a raw deal by his predecessor. He was obviously angry. And why not if some people could so help themselves to public property in a manner that left a poorly resourced institution as the Nigeria Police poorer and more denuded than it was?

Ibrahim did not mince words and was not about giving Arase a quarter when he launched his attack. His angry words were a far cry from the cheerful smiles he and Arase beamed across to President Buhari at the Presidential Villa when Arase took his successor to visit the president on June 21 after he was appointed IG.

There was no but or if in his remarks. IG Idris Ibrahim was sure of the facts in his allegations against Arase and company. Efforts to make them return the vehicles they took with them had yielded no positive response Ibrahim reported. As a consequence of the action of Arase and the other retired officers, Ibrahim said he had set up an investigative team to take an inventory and provide a comprehensive account of all service vehicles. He spat fire and was ready to burn anyone in his way.

It was not long that Nigerians heard from Arase. Far from the United Kingdom where he had reportedly travelled to attend the graduation ceremony of one of his children, the retired officer expressed his outrage at the allegation leveled against him. He saw mischief in the action of Ibrahim even as he wondered what informed his decision to attack him so publicly in spite of the fact that he could have easily reached him on phone.

Arase who initially responded to Ibrahim’s indictment through a phone call soon followed the call with a new release in which he explained that he had no reason to cart away as many as 27 vehicles from the police fleet as he had no intention of establishing a mart for sales of cars. Moreover, he explained, he provided detailed account of these vehicles and other issues in his handover notes to Ibrahim. So what happened? Did Ibrahim not read his handover notes? Or was Arase compelled to respond to Ibrahim’s enquiries about the vehicles only after the latter reported him to the world?

Without prejudice to Arase’s claim that he couldn’t have taken the vehicles attributed to him as he had no intention to set up a car mart, one has to say that Nigerian public officers are best known for their lives of excess.

They abuse their position as a matter of principle and are best known for their penchant for primitive acquisition. Many of those currently on trial for different kinds of corrupt enrichment, spent the proceeds of their illegal plundering of public wealth on acquiring scores of properties within and outside the country. Thus, Arase may need to do more to clear his name that has been so besmirched by Ibrahim. Ibrahim himself simply cannot go silent after just one phone call and press release by Arase.

He must report back on the findings of his investigative panel. He needs to demonstrate he has the emotional stability to hold the office of IG, and not a man prone to throwing tantrums. In case he has forgotten, he made very serious allegations against Arase, allegations that he can’t just sweep under the carpet even as investigations show some of the ‘stolen’ vehicles are undergoing repairs. With recent indictment of past Army chiefs: Ihejirika and Minimah, and the exposure of Buratai’s multi-million dollars Dubai property, Nigerians need to know just how much moral fibre people currently in public office bring to their jobs. Buhari has been quick to give his ministers a clean bill of moral health while the Army wasted no time in exonerating Buratai.   Is Ibrahim about to eat his words?