I didn’t steal police vehicles — Ex-Police IG, Solomon Arase

Mr. Arase, who is in London for his son’s graduation, said in a statement on Monday that every information needed by his successor on vehicles bought by the police were in his handover notes.

He said all vehicles bought by the police under him were distributed to the state commands and other appropriate units of the force.

He also denied getting any letter from Idris since he has been in the UK.

“I suspect there must be a disconnect somewhere because every information needed by my successor are provided in my handover notes,” Mr. Arase said.

“I’m also not aware that any letter was written to me because if there was any dropped in my house, someone would have alerted me.

“It’s unfortunate that this matter is being made a media issue because my successor has my telephone number and could have called me for any clarification or even sent me a text message rather than addressing the media on an issue well documented in my handover notes.”

Mr. Arase’s successor, Ibrahim Idris, had said on Sunday that his former boss went away with 24 police vehicles after he retired from service.

The acting Inspector General also said he had written to his predecessor and other recently retired senior police officers to return the vehicles in their possession.

Mr. Idris said, “When I took over, there was no vehicle, even the vehicle I would use. I discovered the last IG went away with 24 vehicles; the DIGs, some of them eight, some of them seven. The IG’s vehicles included two BMW 7 series, one armoured; and he left me with an old car.

“The last time I followed the President with it, he was asking me, ‘what are you doing with this old car’ because if you see the headlight, the thing has changed colour, which means they parked it and rains and everything had fallen on it, but the new ones that were bought, he (Arase) went with all of them; they are part of the 24.

“I wrote back to him and said, we have a policy that says when a policeman retires, if you are an IG, AIG, a CP, you are entitled to some vehicles; please, the extra, return it. Four vehicles are enough for an average human being, but what will you even do with four vehicles; but he took 24 vehicles, including two BMW cars.