Photos: Police arrest, parade leaders of Peace Corps

The Nigerian Police have paraded the leaders of the Peace Corps of Nigeria for running an illegal security outfit in the country. Spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force, Jimoh Moshood, who paraded them before newsmen in Abuja yesterday, said the leaders of the illegal security outfit were arrested by a joint operation with personnel from the military and department of state services on February 28th.

According to him, the Peace Corps was registered as an NGO but had started operating illegally as a security outfit. Jimoh alleged that some terrorists have infiltrated the operations of Peace Corps of Nigeria. 

“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. 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.”

According to Jimoh, the leaders of the Peace Corps of Nigeria have been engaged in employment racketeering, fraudulently colecting money from youths in the guise of offering them employment. He said they would be arraigned in court soon.