BY Dyepkazah Shibayan
The Police say “terrorist affiliates” have infiltrated the Nigeria Peace Corps to “destroy the existing peace currently being enjoyed in the country.”
On Tuesday, officers of the police and the Department of State Services (DSS) raided the national headquarters of the Corps in Jabi, Abuja, and arrested Dickson Akoh, commandant-general, alongside over 40 members of organisation.
Six officers were said to have sustained serious injuries in the raid, while three others are reportedly lying unconscious at the National Hospital, Abuja.
In a statement on Wednesday, Jimoh Moshood, force public relations officer, said in 2013, the country’s official gazette dissolved the Peace Corps and other quasi illegal security outfits.
Moshood said the corps was registered as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) but opened “illegal training camps” across the county.
“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 said.
“For avoidance of doubt the Peace Corps of Nigeria under the leadership of one Akoh 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 converts military training.
“The Peace Corps of Nigeria has unlawfully turned itself into a security outfit without authorisation and establishment by the federal government of Nigeria, as such, have deviated from the purposes for which they were registered as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) by the Corporate Affairs Commission.”
He added that Akoh and the other members of the Peace Corps would be arraigned after the conclusion of investigations.
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