President Bola Tinubu has sacked Solomon Arase as the chairperson of the Police Service Commission (PSC).
The president replaced him with Hashimu Argungu, a retired deputy inspector general of police, according to a statement by the Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity), Ajuri Ngelale, on Monday.
The president also approved the appointment of Onyemuche Nnamani as secretary of the commission and Taiwo Lakanu, also a retired deputy inspector general of police, as member of the commission.
The statement did not disclose the reason for Mr Arase’s removal from office.
But it comes on the heel of an ICIR investigative report published in February that exposed his alleged involvement in the illegal sale of the lands through a contracting firm, Corpren International Limited, under the guise of developing the police residential estate.
The story was backed by evidence of affidavits and documents of ongoing litigation over the lands located in different parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The ICIR story also revealed that Mr Arase enabled Corpran International Limited to obtain nearly N1 billion from the Police Mortgage Bank without collateral.
It also accused Andy Chime, the owner of Corpran International Limited, of being used to dupe the NPF in the illegal deal.
Following the publication of the ICIR report, Mr Arase and Corpran International Limited instituted lawsuits against the newspaper and the reporter who authored the story.
Messrs Arase and Chime also wrote a petition to the Nigerian Police Force Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC), accusing the journalists of cyberstalking and defamation of character – leading to the harassment of the journalists by the police.
Newspread247 