By Emeka Omeihe
How come a police officer on suspension for alleged criminal infractions was still found performing his official functions? Was it to the knowledge of his supervisors or he was just overreaching himself?
These were some of the puzzles that trailed last week’s inter agency clash between the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, and the Nigerian Police Force. The simmering conflict blew open when the NDLEA in a surprising press conference, declared wanted, a suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police and Commander of Intelligence Response Team IRT of the Nigerian Police Force, Abba Kyari.
Kyari who was declared wanted some months back by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI, has been under probe for alleged criminal link with internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi.
The NDLEA said it had to go it that way following the inability of Kyari to cooperate with it in the face of strong evidence that he “is a member of a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline”.
This came as a rude shock. Insinuations arose as to whether it is a case of those the gods want to kill or a choreographed script to get him off the hook of possible extradition to the US? Is Kyari so incorrigible that he could so soon after get entangled in another embarrassing mess or what?
But the NDLEA furnished detailed account of how Kyari allegedly tried to corrupt its officials to pervert the course of justice in the case involving two drug couriers arrested with 25kg of cocaine at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu by his IRT team.
Armed with video footages, screenshots of WhatsApp messages and transcripts of conversations, the NDLEA demonstrated how Kyari proposed a drug deal with its officials. During the discussions, Kyari was said to have disclosed that his team had already taken out 15kg of the seized cocaine shared between the informant that gave the lead for the arrest and his team of the IRT.
Kyari further offered to sell half of the remaining 10 kilograms on behalf of officials of the NDLEA and remit the money to them. Both the 15 kg already sold and the five he was proposing to sell on behalf of the NDLEA are to be replaced with dummies.
The remaining five kilograms will be manipulated during testing in the presence of the suspects to give a false sense of genuineness to the 20 dummy packages. That was the chilling and obviously despicable turn of events for which the agency declared Kyari wanted.
Few hours after the press conference, Kyari and four other officers were arrested and handed over to the NDLEA on the order of the Inspector General of Police for alleged involvement in criminal conspiracy, official corruption and tampering with exhibits in a case of illicit drug trafficking involving a perpetual transnational drug cartel.
But the police also gave a chilling account of the confessions of the drug suspects and their serial collaboration with official of the NDLEA for ease of passage with their illicit goods on arrival at the airport. This entails supplying their pre-departure photographs and other details to collaborating NDLEA officials prior to their arrival at the airport.
The police leadership requested the chief executive of the NDLEA to identify, arrest and investigate its officers found to be colluding with the international drug cartel involved in the case. These were the putrid stories from two key law enforcement agencies of this country. They speak volumes on the rot in the system.
There are two strands of this case – one involving Abba Kyari and four other officers of the IRT unit. The other has to do with yet-to-be identified NDLEA officials at the Enugu airport that aids and abets easy passage of illicit drugs into the country. It is yet unclear how many of such colluding NDLEA officials allegedly on the payroll of the drug cartel at the Enugu airport have been arrested by the agency.
Even then, emerging disclosures from the police and the NDLEA are as embarrassing as they are mindboggling. These are two key agencies with the statutory duties for law enforcement in their respective spheres. It is sad that those entrusted with law enforcement are neck deep in the current mess. The miserable impression these convey is that our security agencies are the greatest impediment to the campaign to rid the country of illicit drugs. Or how else do we account for the show of shame that is the outcome of the arrest of the two suspected importers of 25kg of cocaine?
We are confronted with a shameful situation in which the Police and the NDLEA are in mutual recrimination on which of their officials are more complicit in encouraging the importation of illicit drugs. It is a vicious cycle of one agency collaborating with drug couriers to allow the drugs into the country. The other takes it up from there by seizing and selling them to the same public the government wants to protect.
The financial gains from the illicit drug business end up in the pockets of those paid with public funds to protect the society from evil. Is it surprising that drug abuse has been at an all-time high despite claims to the contrary?
Now the Abba Kyari phenomenon! It came as a rude shock that a police officer on suspension for alleged criminal links with Ramon Abbas, alias Hushpuppi could still be very active in his duties. He may have been emboldened by the prevarication of the police leadership which turned in a weak report on his earlier case. The rejection of that report by the Police Service Commission is instructive.
It is getting clearer that Kyari has serious backing from high quarters and may not be alone in the sundry infractions for which his name has become a bad image to the police force. It is unimaginable that he eats alone, the kind of monies that are bandied around. It is time to untie the Kyari puzzle.
Kyari has become a huge contradiction. The turn of events casts serious doubts on the accolades and encomiums hitherto poured on him by his supervisors. How did the police come about his so-called superlative career profile that is now in mismatch with his recurring barefaced corrupt entanglement? Dialectics is already in quick activation and its outcome can no longer be delayed. Who knows who the next victims will be?
Emeka Omeihe,writes from Lagos
