The Nigerian Police on Wednesday paraded the leaders of the Peace Corps of Nigeria over illegal operation of a security outfit.
Police spokesman, Jimoh Moshood said during the parade at the Force Headquarters in Abuja that the arrest was carried out by a joint operation with personnel from the military and department of state services on 28th February 2017.
He explained that the operation was to halt and rid the country of illegal/unlawful security outfits constituting national security threat and threat to the protection of life and property of Nigerians across the country.
He said: “Credible intelligence reports at the disposal of the Force revealed that some of these illegal security outfits have started acquiring weapons and conducting covert military training in different locations across the country.”
“It is evident that in 2013, Federal Republic of Nigeria official Gazette dissolved and proscribed illegal security outfits. However, it has been observed that Nigerian Maritime Security Agency NMSA, Peace Corps of Nigeria, Maritime Security Agency and National Task Force to Combat Illegal Importation/Smuggling of Arms and Ammunition, Light and Chemical/Weapons are still operating outside their mandates and purposes for which they were registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission. For avoidance of doubt the Peace Corps of Nigeria under the leadership of one Akor Dickson was registered as an NGO but with brazen impunity, total disregard to the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, opened illegal training camps in some states of the country, where thousands of youths and other persons without proper background check and screening are receiving covert military training.”
He said: “It is consequent upon the above and the veracity of intelligence reports from reliable sources, indicating that subversive elements/groups and terrorist affiliates have infiltrated the Peace Corps of Nigeria secretly to ruin and destroy the existing peace currently being enjoyed in the country that the Peace Corps of Nigeria secret training camps were closed down in the FCT, Kwara and Niger states.”
He also said during the preliminary investigation into the activities of the Peace Corps of Nigeria, it was discovered that personnel of the Corps are extorting money from unwary youths throughout the country under the guise of recruitment.Corps of Nigeria.
He said they will be arraigned in court on completion of investigation.
