Director General of the National Taskforce on Prohibition of Illegal Importation/Smuggling of Small Arms, Ammunition, Light Weapons, (NATFORCE), Dr. Osita Okereke, has petitioned to the Acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu Abubakar, over his alleged unlawful arrest and detention for nine days by the police.
In a copy of the petition which he made available to DAILY POST in Abuja on Thursday, Okereke said he was detained along 21 members of the agency on April 18, 2019, over an alleged assault on some policemen reportedly sent for his arrest on the day he had appointment with the IGP.
Okereke’s travail was sequel to an alleged petition by one Chijioke Okoro, whom he described as a “self-made ambassador and Acting Director General of the Taskforce.
The Police further alleged to have lost N33,000; I.D card and Mobile phones worth N700,000, thus detained him at the Special Anti-robbery Squad in Abuja for 10 days.
The petition, dated May 6, 2019, was sent to the Presidency, Director General of State Security Service, SSS and Director General of National Intelligence Agency.
He urged the IGP to use his “good offices to carry out a thorough investigation on the allegations levelled against me by the policemen and some aggrieved persons in the Importers Association of Nigeria”.
The petition further highlighted: “The issue of my position as the president of IMAN and Director General of NATFORCE, has since been decided in my favour at both the lower and appeal courts”.
He insisted that his detention was unlawful and an abuse of his fundamental human rights saying it is unconstitutional for the police “to detain him for more than 24 hours over alleged petition against him by an impostor.”
