A police
sergeant attached to Ipakodo Police Division has been arrested after confessing
to selling police arms and ammunition to suspected militants in Lagos.
It was
gathered that the suspect, identified as Sergeant Sunday Odu, attempted to
shoot himself dead at the station, but was prevented by a team inspecting the
armoury.
A source
told Punch that the sergeant had been detained and put in a cell at the State
Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Yaba, where the case was
being investigated.
The source
said that the incident happened on Thursday, saying Odu indicted another
policeman, whom he claimed connived with him in selling the arms.
“A police
audit team, led by an assistant commissioner of police, went to the station on
Thursday. It was a verification exercise to know the situation of arms and
ammunition at the station.
“They
attempted to bribe the team, but they insisted on doing their job and going on
with the inspection of the armoury.
“During the
audit, they discovered that they had sold many of the arms and ammunition. To
be precise, about 162 arms had been sold.
Immediately
the situation was discovered, the armourer, a police sergeant, cocked his gun
and wanted to kill himself.
“But the
team quickly seized the gun from him and handcuffed him. He has been taken to
the SCIID. After much interrogation and beating, he confessed that he sold the
arms and another policeman was involved,” said the source.
Also, a
source at the SCIID confirmed that the policeman was in custody, adding that
the number of ammunition sold was large.
He said, “I
don’t know if he sold arms. But I am aware that he sold bullets to militants.
The bullets he sold cannot be exhausted by a police division for one year. I
was told the Divisional Police Officer, who checked the armoury, discovered
that where they kept bullets were filled with stones. The bullets had developed
wings. The DPO reported his findings to the state commissioner of police, who
then ordered that he be detained and transferred to the SCIID. He is in the
cell now.”
It was
gathered from a detective that the suspect confessed that he sold the bullets
to militants, and that the police command was already looking into the case.
He said the
command was bothered about how militants were getting arms and ammunition and
the spate of killings in the Ikorodu area.
“It will not
be right to continue to protect these bad cops that are spoiling the name of
the police force and I do hope that, with this discovery, others doing such
terrible things would stop,” another source said.
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