The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has declared the suspended head of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Intelligence Response Team (IRT), DCP Abba Kyari, wanted for drug trafficking.
The NDLEA said an investigation has revealed that the celebrated Kyari is a member of a drug syndicate operating across the globe.
The spokesman of the agency, Mr Femi Babafemi, said this at a media briefing on Monday in Abuja.
The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, has said there are reasonable grounds to proceed against Kyari, who was fingered in a multi-million dollars fraud spearheaded by Ramon Abass, aka Hushpuppi.
The U.S. government had in July 2021, unveiled the charges against Mr Kyari and other alleged co-conspirators.
Hushpuppy, a Nigerian Instagram celebrity until his arrest in Dubai, UAE, in June 2020, is one of the arrowheads of the scam.
He has pleaded guilty to the charges in a separate case, and his sentence is billed to come up later in the year.
“As far as I am concerned, the parties are discussing, the parties are collaborating and there are exchanges of correspondence from the perspective of investigation, from the perspective of extradition and associated things,” Malami had said in an interview on Channels Television.
Asked if Mr Kyari was found “guilty” in the police report, Malami said, “You can’t find someone guilty, but perhaps, reasonable grounds for suspicion can be established which will translate into prosecution.”
Kyari’s indictment
However, at the Monday briefing in Abuja, the NDLEA spokesman said the embattled Kyari has declared wanted over his involvement in a 25kgs Cocaine deal.
He said that the NDLEA took the decision after all efforts to get Kyari to honour formal invitations for his interrogation failed.
He lamented that those who are supposed to support current efforts to stem the tide of illicit drug trafficking and abuse are themselves neck-deep in the menace.
“Even before the damning findings of the 2018 National Drug Use and Health Survey, Nigeria’s drug problem was getting close to epidemic proportion.
“And if anything, the arrests and seizures by NDLEA in the past 12 months is an indication that the country’s drug problem was grossly underestimated before President Muhammadu Buhari’s resolve to strengthen the NDLEA and the subsequent launch of offensive action by the agency to clean the society of the menace.
“Unfortunately, some law enforcement agents who should be partners in the pursuit of the President’s mandate are at the forefront of breaking the law, as they aid and abet drug trafficking in the country.
“Today, we are forced to declare one of such law enforcement agents wanted in the person of suspended DCP Abba Kyari, the erstwhile Commander of Intelligence Response Team (IRT) at the Force Intelligence Bureau of the Nigerian Police Force.
“With the intelligence at our disposal, the agency believes strongly that DCP Kyari is a member of a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline, and he needs to answer questions that crop up in an ongoing drug case in which he is the principal actor.
“His failure to cooperate forced the hand of the Agency and that is the reason for this press briefing,” Babafemi said.
