The Director General National Task Force to combat illegal importation/Smuggling of Arms, Ammunition, Light Weapon, (NATFORCE) Chief Osita Okereke has called on all security agencies to stay away from members of the NATFORCE, while performing their duties.
Okereke who made this known in a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, that he was surprise that the Inspector General of Police ordered his men to arrest any member of NATFORCE.
According to him, his men were recently arrested in Sokoto, Akwa Ibom, Jigawa, Delta and Taraba states, that he totally disagreed with the order, because NATFORCE officials are citizens of Nigeria who volunteered to do the job the police could not do.
“We have been doing it for a long time, if I get angry with all my boys even in Abuja nobody will go about on the street. It is painful because I am a Nigerian and this is happening in Nigeria. My task is to initiate peace in the country, let there be peace in every community of Nigeria.
“That is why I sponsored bill in the national assembly, I don’t sponsor bill to favor myself, but to favor every families in Nigeria. I don’t know every family in Nigeria, and I can’t know them all.
But today the police see that the bills will be a success. The hoodlums, criminals and gun runners went and meet the police and contributed money, gave to the police to enable them intimidate us.
“The group of people we defeated in the court, the federal high court quashed their case claiming that we had been disbanded, and nobody appeal the case, and the police then was part of the case partnering with us with a sworn affidavit presented to the court by the police, that they the police are working with us as partners,” he said.
Okereke said that despite the court judgement, he was surprised to hear that NATFORCE was disbanded, that the police do not have any power to disband the national task force.
“The national task force is an independent body, and we are not working under the police, we only partner with the police. The letter I wrote to them was for us to synergize, because we do not have guns, but what we have they do not have it.
“I called you today to let Nigerians know that what the police are doing today will destroy Nigeria, and to let you know that insecurity in Nigeria is been caused by the police because they are not doing what they are surpassed to do.
“Everyday people complain that Buhari is not working, but since democracy in Nigeria its only Buhari that had promoted the officers more than two times, paid all their allowances and increased the salary of the police for them to be effective, but we are still fighting insecurity today,” he said.
The NATFORCE boss said they have decided not to work with the police or give them any cases again, that they are warning the police not to go near any of their offices in Nigeria, because they are already in court, that if they do it will result to a contempt of court.
“The people I defeated in court, when they appealed the case they lost and I went to the Supreme Court. In February this year we arrested some men with explosives in Ibadan, the men promised to give my boys N5 million to allow them have their ways, but my boys refused and handed them over to the police, only for the police to release the men on bail telling us that they are investigating the case.
“I have made up my mind to petition the president and tell him about the activities of the Nigerian Police. We cannot continue to die in silence for the police to arrest my boy, because they are nobody or what? Those that were arrested in Akwa Ibom are still in the cell since Friday, we request that they should be charged to court if you have evidence of their arrest.
“We have handed over 30 cases to the police in Taraba State, including a case of a kidnapper who gave evidence and names of his sponsors, but today the cases are not giving any treatment we were only told that the suspects are in Bauchi and Gombe without any outcome of those cases, we also handed over to the police (SMG) Sub Machine Guns, AK 47 in Taraba State with no results from these cases,” he stressed.
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