The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, CP Olohundare Jimoh, has set up a 5-man committee to probe the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Elemoro Division for allegedly attempting to jail two innocent mechanics.
Jimoh made this known in a statement by the command’s spokesperson, CSP Benjamin Hundeyin in Lagos on Monday.
The CP ordered the probe following a publication in the Vanguard Newspaper of April 24, with the headline: “Power in wrong hands: How a Lagos DPO tried to jail 2 innocent mechanics”
In the publication, a lawyer accused the DPO of unlawfully detaining his mechanics and seizing his car.
The lawyer said that he gave his car to his mechanics and during test-driving, officers from the Elemoro Police Division apprehended them claiming that the car was a suspected stolen vehicle.
The legal practitioner said that after he had already identified himself as the car owner, the DPO still charged his mechanics to court, accusing them of being in possession of a vehicle “reasonably suspected to be stolen”,
The lawyer said that the magistrate of the court, after reviewing evidence dismissed the charges immediately and freed his mechanics but the DPO refused to release his car.
He said that it took a formal order from the magistrate before his car was finally released, 22 days after it was unlawfully seized.
The lawyer called on the police authority to probe the action of the DPO claiming that many innocent people were behind bars for similar cases.
Responding, CP Jimoh said that the command had set up a committee headed by a Deputy Commissioner of Police, State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), including the Officer-in Charge of Legal of the Command to investigate all the allegations in the report and submit findings within a week.
According to him, the DPO and other officers involved have been transferred out of Elemoro Division to pave the way for a thorough and unhindered investigation into the allegations in the report.
“The outcome of the investigation will certainly be made public.
“We wish to extend invitation to the lawyer concerned for a meeting at his own convenience with the committee set up to investigate the allegations, ” he said.
The Commissioner said that the command does not support any form of inhuman treatment or miscarriage of justice in any form.
“If the officers involved are found wanting, in anyway, appropriate disciplinary measures will be applied to serve as effective deterrent to others.
“We implore members of the public to have trust in the police and be assured that every wrongdoing proven against any officer would certainly be redressed, ” the police boss said.
