Uniport Killings: Police dismissed sergeant for his role in the murder of 4 students

Frank Mba, the Nigerian Police Force Public Relations officer, on Wednesday announced that the force has dismissed a sergeant identified as Lucky Orji for alleged involvement in the murder of four UNIPORT students in Aluu Community.

The sergeant was dismissed for ordering the mob to kill the suspected students based on the confessions of one of the arrested suspects.

According to Mba, the Force has carried out their investigations and dismissed Orji, and the sergeant will be among 13 persons that will be charged to court.

The spokesman said the dismissed officer and another police officer allegedly stumbled upon the angry mob while beating the students, though they were not deployed there.

“The officers were not even sent to the scene, he went on his own, outside the code of conduct and professional ethics of the job,” Mba said. “One was professional to ask the mob to stop and the other asked them to continue.”

The PRO reiterated the force's preparedness to prosecute the officer, as a measure of its resolve to put an end to all forms of impunity in the Nigerian Police. He explained that the dismissal is part of the internal cleansing by which the force relieves culpable officers of their duties.

He, however, noted that mob attacks were not peculiar to Nigeria alone.

“It’s something we must work together to review. Nigerians must not be quick to heap the blame on the police alone," he said.

He insisted that, like every other agencies in the country, the police force is not exempted from persons with questionable characters.

“If you recruit an officer, the person carries the family value around. We need reorientation from the families and to the various worship centres,” he said, adding that “we must look at the content our mass media is dishing out. We have to review all this".

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