Abba Kyari: Police report laced with loopholes – PSC

The Police Service Commission (PSC), on Thursday revealed that the investigative report submitted by the Nigeria Police Force on one of its embattled officers, Abba Kyari, is filled with many loopholes.

The commission, which earlier ordered the Force to conduct a fresh probe with a different panel on the ‘super cop’, and submit another report within two weeks, maintained that it must submit a fresh report within the given time frame.

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Ikechukwu Ani, the commission’s spokesman, in a telephone interview with Daily Trust on Thursday, explained that the commissioners, led by Musiliu Smith, a retired Inspector-General of Police would take another decision if the loopholes still reflect in the new report.

It would be recalled that the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, had set up a probe panel to investigate Kyari over allegations by the Federal Investigation Bureau in the United States that he (Kyari) has links with the billionaire internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas popularly known as Hushpuppi.

The panel, led by Joseph Egbunike, a Deputy Inspector-General of Police at Force Headquarters, Abuja, submitted its report to the IGP, which was later submitted to the Police Service Commission.

Not satisfied with the report, the PSC, at its last plenary returned the report and ordered that the police should set up a different panel to investigate the matter.

But responding to Daily Trust’s enquiry on whether the PSC had abandoned the first report, hence its resolve for a new report, the commission said it has not abandoned the report, saying the fresh probe panel is directed to fill all the loopholes the report has.

”Jettisoned? We have not jettisoned the report. We now said that they need to do more works, there are loopholes, there are gaps, that a new panel should handle,” Ani told our correspondent on the telephone.

He added, ”When they do that and bring it to us, we will now take a decision on the man. The commission noticed there are gaps, there are more investigations they wanted to be concluded before they can make a definite decision on the man. We gave them two weeks to do that.”

When asked what the commission would do if there are still further loopholes in the subsequent report to be submitted, Ani said, ”You know you’re asking me a question I don’t know. You know I’m not a member of the commission, they brief me after their meetings. If there are further loopholes, the commission will look at it and make a decision and they will tell me.”

The Nigeria Police Force could not be reached for comments when filing this report as the acting spokesman of the Force, Muyiwa Adejobi, said via a text message that he was out of Abuja.