Posted by By AKIN ALOFETEKUN, Minna on
Allegations of sex-for-posting, and financial inducements against some top brass of the police force are currently rocking the departure of the next batch of police peace-keeping force to war-torn Sudan.
Allegations of sex-for-posting, and financial inducements against some top brass of the police force are currently rocking the departure of the next batch of police peace-keeping force to war-torn Sudan.
At the last count, the 10 police officers interviewed and accepted by the mission's headquarters in New York, USA, are being replaced by those who could pay or the women that are ready to pay ‘in kind.'
Competent sources told Sunday Sun that initially some 60 officers were short-listed for the peace keeping assignment in Sudan but the number was later reduced to 42 after a telephone interview conducted by the authorities in New York lasting for about 30 minutes with each of the 60 officers.
Following the interview, 42 of them were acknowledged for the exercise. A police wireless message dated June 28, 2007 from ‘B' Department in Abuja to a number of police formations in the country relayed the good news to the affected officers.
The mission's headquarters in New York however discovered that it could have places for only 10 officers from Nigeria, and that was the level where the do-or-die lobby started to the extent that even the 10 officers the mission picked for the exercise based on their experience are being traded for money and sex.
Even though the authorities in New York have insisted that only the 10 officers that were interviewed would be accepted based on the fact that they have experience in peacekeeping, a source close to the office of a Police DIG in Abuja hinted that 'New York has no business dictating to us who to send for the exercise. When we are ready, we shall send to Sudan those we think will be good ambassadors and not those they want. Nigeria is not under colonial rule."
Asked of how the police authority in Nigeria intends to break the imminent impasse and the possibility of Nigeria missing out in action in Sudan, the source simply said: 'Wait and see, and I can assure you, it's not going to be a long wait."