May 19, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, says the report of the Justice Ayo Salami-led panel on Ibrahim Magu, former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is still under consideration.
Dingyadi spoke on Thursday at the 38th Session of the State House Briefing, organised by the presidential communication team at the presidential villa, Abuja.
He briefed the press on the current status of policing and security in the country and provided insight on key updates from the Presidential Roadmap on Police Reform.
The minister said the former acting EFCC chairman can still be prosecuted, if found guilty despite his retirement.
Magu was in July 2020, arrested, detained and suspended. He had appeared before the Salami-led panel probing allegations of gross misconduct against him.
President Muhammadu Buhari had set up an investigative panel chaired by Salami to probe Magu, following the accusations raised against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN).
In November 2020, the Salami-led panel submitted its report including recommendations, to President Muhammadu Buhari. To date, the federal government has not officially made public the report of the panel.
The panel, had reportedly recommended Magu’s removal as EFCC chairman “for failing to properly account for N431,000,000.00 security votes/information fund released to the office of the Executive Chairman of EFCC between November 2015 and May 2020.”
lt further recommended that Magu be referred to the inspector-general of police (IGP) for “necessary disciplinary action”, and that he should be prosecuted for the alleged offences.
Despite the recommendation of the panel, Magu resumed duties at the police headquarters as commissioner of police (CP), his rank before he was appointed acting EFCC chairman.
On Monday, the Police Service Commission (PSC) confirmed the promotion of Magu to the position of Assistant Inspector-general of police (AIG) amid his expected retirement from the police, having clocked the mandatory retirement age of 60 on May 5.
Asked why Magu was promoted despite the report of the Salami panel, the police affairs minister said the promotion of police officers is under the purview of the PSC, and that it is only the commission that can speak on why Magu was promoted.
His words: “This is an issue that should have been addressed by PSC, which has been saddled with the responsibility to conduct promotion for police. They are not here and I’m aware that the police service commission is directly under the presidency, so I cannot speak for them.
“What I know is that Mr Magu has already retired. I think that is all I can say now. The fact that he was promoted is a matter for the police service commission to throw more light on.
“I’m not aware of the position of the government on the report you are talking about and I think it is still being under consideration and it does not mean that when he retires the law won’t catch up with him whenever is found guilty of one thing or the other. I think it is not completely a finished business.”
Asked why the identify of the unknown gunmen causing havoc in the South-east have not been unraveled, since the members of the Indigenous People’s of Biafra (IPOB) have disowned the killings in the region, the Minister said “Okay, the unknown gunmen, you want to know who they are? I want to tell you that they are unknown gunmen and they are also criminals. They’re terrorists and we are dealing with them in the language they understand.”
Dingyadi, also disclosed that the Police has begun to deploy technology in dealing with crimes and criminalities in the country. He added that Police authorities were striving hard to be civil in their operations, but would deploy firearms where necessary in the discharge of their responsibilities.
On if the policy on community policy has commenced, he said: “And it has commenced and we couldn’t have trained 25,000 constabularies if the programme has not started. So, the programme is on course, and is in all the 36 states of the Federation, and these constabularies have been posted to their various communities, and like I said, in my presentation, to do a lot of policing activities in those areas, and to add to the visibility of police in those communities.
“And the responsibility of the communities in which these constabularies are being posted, is to cooperate with this constabularies to ensure that they assist them in sharing intelligence, in reporting cases that need to be reported.
“And to assist them in resolving issues that can be easily or locally resolved. So, the community policing programme is there for the communities to ensure that they collaborate with these constabularies to provide peace in their communities.”
On police recruitment, Dingyadi noted that the ministry has the approval to sign on 40,000 constables, out of which 20,000 has already been achieved, noting that the plan is to have 30,000 constables on the payroll in the next two months.
He explained: “On the recruitment of police being controversial. I don’t know how controversial. I want to tell you that I’ve already given a report on this. You will recall that Mr President had directed us to recruit 40,000 Constables within his second tenure.
“We have so far done 20,000. We are on the third tranche of this recruitment. And I think in the next one month or two, we will be concluding, the third tranche and we will be having about 30,000 constables on our payroll.”
On psychiatric test for policemen to ascertain their psychological stability, the minister said the men were being made to undergo rigorous and extensive screening, including medical tests on prospective recruits, assuring that the best available were those engaged in the system.
While noting that the demands of the ENDSARS protesters boiled down to police welfare, he disclosed that the government has begun to implement, with 25,000 constabularies trained for community policing.
Dingyadi, however, urged the community leaders to cooperate with the constabularies posted to them by gathering and sharing intelligence, as well as reporting cases that needed to be reported.
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