The police have dismissed 121 of at least 167 police officers from a counterterrorism training facility to avoid Boko Haram insurgents last week.
The 121 officers of the police rank-and-file were accused of and desertion, prompting Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris to dismissal with immediate effect
A directive has gone several police units where the dismissed officers were attached retrieve all police equipment in their possession and from payrolls.
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.
They were then declared wanted, amidst fears that they could be harmful because they did not submit the arms, ammunition and other police equipment in their possession before fleeing.
The police had in their first reaction on Wednesday night strongly denied that the officers absconded as reported by PREMIUM TIMES, with their spokesperson Jimoh Moshood saying from the Force Headquarters that the 2,000 officers were still in the training centre ready for deployment against Boko Haram thugs.
The signals detailing the mass dismissal, which were authenticated by police chiefs at the top command, surfaced while the Nigerian Army contradicted the police’s claim that officers did not abscond.
The full list police officers dismiss credited by Premiumtimesng
