• Police, SSS Arrest Serving Customs Comptroller Over Arms Deal
A serving Comptroller of Customs, Mr Jack Bot has been arrested in Abuja for allegedly buying ammunitions over time from Niger State Police command.
Mr. Jack Bot was arrested by men of the State Security Service (SSS) at the customs head office Wuse, Abuja, on Tuesday. The SSS also arrested two police officers for alleged involvement in supplying arms and ammunition to armed robbers, and the information they provided led to the arrest of Mr. Bot.
The customs officer and the two policemen were alleged to have a connection with the disappearance of some ammunition from the police armoury in Minna.
Bot, an indigene of Plateau state was alleged to be purchasing arms and ammunition from a former armourer of the Nigeria Police, who was serving in Niger State command, and which he was said to be supplying to his kiths and kin to escalate the violence and arson that have characterised Jos, capital of Plateau State for years.
The security operatives had earlier arrested Bot’s former orderly, identified only as Shehu Ahmed.
And in a swift reaction to the arrests, the Customs Comptroller General, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi has vowed that the Service will not harbor in its fold gun- runners whose activities constitute a threat to national security.
The Comptroller General, stated this in Abuja after handing over the serving Comptroller of the Service to operatives of the Nigeria Police over the allegations of gun-running.
Confirming the development and the Customs CGH reaction in a statement made available to Shipping Position Daily yesterday, Customs Public Relations Officer, Mr Wale Adeniyi quoted his boss as saying that:”Despite the fact that the investigating officers came to my office without a warrant of arrest, I decided to produce the officers on account of the weight of allegations levied against him”.
The statement confirmed further that “Bot Jack, a Comptroller in the Inspectorate Division of the Service was fingered in an on-going investigation into illegal procurement of weapons from the Police Armoury. The offence was alleged to have been committed in Minna, Niger State sometimes in 2002, when Jack was an Assistant Comptroller of Customs.”
“Another Junior Officer, Shehu Ahmed, who worked with Jack as his orderly in Minna alleged to have been an accomplice in the crime was also handed over to the Police.”
Both officers are now on suspension from the Service pending the outcome of investigations, the statement added.
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