Despite repeated denial over abscondment of its Officers, the police have dismissed 121 of at least 167 police officers who absconded from a counter-terrorism training facility to avoid deployment against Boko Haram insurgents last week.
Blueprint had reported how some Policemen disappeared from training in Yobe state.
The 121 officers of the police rank-and-file were accused of committing mutiny and desertion, prompting Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris to order their dismissal with immediate effect, according to Premium Times.
A directive has gone out for several police units where the dismissed officers were attached to immediately retrieve all police equipment in their possession and remove them from payrolls.
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 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.
