Posted by By JAMES OJO, Abuja on
Not satisfied with the way the former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun was asked to retire from service by President Olusegun Obasanjo before his retirement age, the House of Representatives Tuesday mandated three commiittees to probe the matter.
Not satisfied with the way the former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun was asked to retire from service by President Olusegun Obasanjo before his retirement age, the House of Representatives Tuesday mandated three commiittees to probe the matter.
The commiittees are Financial Crimes, Anti- Corruption and Police Affairs. They are to liaise with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) who blew the wind off the former IG and to determine the level of Balogun culpability in the allegations of widespread corruption levied against him.
Balogun was forced to retirement under circumstances that left much to be descried in his commitments to fight corruption in the force.
Moving the motion on the sudden retirement of the IG,
Hon Halims Agoda and five others said it would be a failure on the part of the house not to ascertain the veracity of the financial allegations made against the fomer IG in the press after his forced retirement.
He said it was imperatives to look at the circumstances leading to the sack of the nation's topmost officer if only to protect the image of the police force.
While calling for the conduct of a thorough probe into the sack, Agoda applauded the speed at which the president acted on the matter after receiving very incriminating dossiers on the former police boss describing it as an evidence of the president's commitment to fight corruption in the land.
Hon Agoda said there was the need to validate or jettison the allegations of huge amount of money allegedly traced to the accounts credited to Balogun at a bank in Lagos.
Should he found wanting at the end of the investigation, the House moved that the former Inspector General should be appropriately punished with dissimsal from the force and not just to retire him