Commissioner of Police suspended •Over escape of Boko Haram suspect

Tribune

18 January 2012

Commissioner of Police suspended •Over escape of Boko Haram suspect

•JTF kills 4 Boko Haram sect members

A major storm is blowing in the top hierarchy of the Nigeria Police, as a commissioner of police has been suspended over the escape of a prime suspect in the last Christmas Day bombing at Madalla, Niger State.

The Commissioner of Police in charge of CID Zone 7 of the police, Mr Zakari Biu, was suspended, on Tuesday, by the police high command over the escape of the suspect, Kabir Sokoto, at Abaji, near Abuja on Monday.

Mr Biu was suspended over what a source described as “suspicious negligence quite unbecoming of an officer of the rank of a police commissioner.”

The suspended police officer was very prominent in the security issues that defined the Sani Abacha administration and was retired by the Obasanjo administration in 1999. He was recently recalled and became police commissioner last month. He was due for retirement next month. He hails from Biu town in Borno State.

It was gathered that the police authorities were alarmed to learn that the suspended Biu detailed only four policemen to accompany a high-profile suspect of the status of Kabir Sokoto, who was alleged to have coordinated the bomb blasts that killed over 40 people in Madalla last Christmas Day.

A source said more intriguing was the information that the Investigation Police Officer (IPO) was away in Kaduna, when Biu ordered that the policemen should take the suspect to Abaji to search his house. It was after this that hundreds of youths, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” ambushed and overwhelmed the four policemen while the suspect escaped.