LAGOS DECEMBER 28TH (NEWSRANGERS)-The police have dismissed 121 of at least 167 police officers who absconded from a counterterrorism training facility to avoid deployment against Boko Haram insurgents last week, PREMIUM TIMES can report.
The 121 officers of the police rank-and-file were accused of committing mutiny and desertion, prompting Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris to order their dismissal with immediate effect.
A directive has gone out for several police units where the dismissed officers were attached to immediately retrieve all police equipment in their possession and remove them from payrolls, according to a December 26 signal seen by PREMIUM TIMES.
The mass dismissal comes a day after PREMIUM TIMES broke the news of the large-scale desertion, eliciting renewed nationwide concerns about Nigeria’s progress in the Boko Haram war, which is now entering its tenth year.
The 167 police officers whom PREMIUM TIMES confirmed as having absconded were amongst the 2,000 sent on a counter-insurgency training at the Nigerian Army Special Forces Training School in Buni Yadi, Yobe State.
Scores of them disappeared after learning that they would be deployed in active combat against Boko Haram in communities where the insurgents are still virulent, as against relatively peaceful settlements like Maiduguri metro area.