He said the demand was turned down by the Task Team, who insisted on moving the suspects from Area ‘B’ to the detention facility of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, for further investigation, “but the Area Commander resisted the move.”
Sources close to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council where the Presidential Task Team, PTT, is domiciled, told Vanguard that about nine members of the task team were detained, stripped of their phones and cameras seized and the contents in the memory card deleted by the Police.
In the heated argument over the movement of the suspects to the ICPC cell in Ikoyi, Lagos, the Coordinator of the Team, Moses Fadipe, who was said to be among those harassed, alerted the Presidency, consequent upon which the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali, was contacted.
It took the directive of IGP Baba to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, CP Abiodun Alabi before the six suspects were moved to the ICPC detention facility in Ikoyi.
Effort to reach ACP Dikwa was futile as calls to his mobile phone were neither answered nor returned.
Contacted, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, told Vanguard that the Commander did not know members of the Presidential Task Team hence their maltreatment.