30th January, 2013
By Ayodeji Dedeigbo & Damilare Okunola
Umar Manko, commissioner of the Nigeria Police in Lagos state has dismissed Corporal Goroye Folagade, for stealing a motorcycle.
This was contained in a statement signed by the command’s spokesperson, DSP Ngozi Braide in Lagos.
“Police Force No. 444123 Cpl. Goroye Folagbade, attached to Ikorodu Division, has been tried in an orderly room for an offence of discreditable conduct for stealing a motorcycle.
“The offence is contrary to paragraph (E) of the first schedule of Police Act and Regulation 370, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
“The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, promptly reviewed the proceedings and upheld the findings of guilt and thereby approved subject’s dismissal from the force with effect from Jan. 16, 2013,” the statement said.
The commissioner said police uniforms and other accoutrements had been retrieved from the suspect.
He said the corporal had been arraigned with one other at the Chief Magistrate’s Court 11, Ikorodu, southwest Nigeria.
The command, however, re-assured members of the public of its zero tolerance for corruption and other vices from any member of the command.
P.M.News had reported in its Monday, 14 January, 2013 edition, that the Operation Officer of the Police Division, Ebuwa Vincent, seized the motorcycle from Saheed a few days after Christmas because he violated traffic law but could not produce the motorcycle afterwards, claiming that it had been taken to Alausa whereas the motorcycle had been stolen and sold.
After several failed attempts to recover the seized motorcycle, Saheed eventually found his motorcycle with another commercial motorcyclist, Ismail Olomitutu, at Anibaba area of Ikorodu on Thursday, 10 January, 2013 and he raised an alarm, saying he was the rightful owner of the motorcycle.
P.M.NEWS gathered that Ismail was interrogated before he eventually confessed that it was one of the station guards, Goroye Folagbade, who sold the motorcycle to him for N55,000.
Goroye later confessed to have committed the said criminal act when he was summoned by the Divisional Crime Officer, DCO of Igbogbo Divisional Headquarters after which he was arrested and detained at the same police station.
According to P.M.NEWS sources, “Goroye does not know how to ride a motorcycle so he probably must have asked Ismail to come for the motorcycle inside the police station when no one was suspecting. Even the OPS in charge may have connived with him to dispatch the motorcycle because he lied to the owner of the motorcycle that it had been taken to Alausa.”
The police corporal who spoke with P.M.NEWS correspondents over the phone from detention had begged them not to write about the incident.
Sources close to Goroye also revealed that the Police Corporal was planning his wedding introduction with his fiancee who was said to be heavily pregnant.