3 July 2009
The Liberia National Police have been accused by a local church of being in cahoots with alleged robbers who reportedly robbed the church of over US14, 000.00 A huge number of Police officers last Wednesday, June 24, 2009 arrested two Nigerian armed robbers, who were being hotly pursued by motorcyclists from 12th Street up to Neezoe in Paynesville.
Following the tracking of the robbers by the police and cyclists, and the retrieval of the moneybag with colossal sum of money belonging to a local church, the police not only took the robbers to the National Police Headquarters but have shown impervious disposition by remaining tight-lipped and effectively refusing to turn over the money that was taken in the presence of motorcyclists and a crowd of eyewitnesses.
Since the incident on that fateful Wednesday, the Police has been conducting investigations with numerous motorcyclists, who have pointed to the fact that the money in question was taken by a black-skinned officer seated by the driver (as all were in the same blue Police uniform) driving a blue police patrol vehicle with a mounted siren that arrived on the scene in Neezoe Jacobtown Paynesville.
The concerned officers of the Police have been frustrating church members to the extent the latter are no longer allowed to enter the hearing halls while numerous Nigerians are being allowed to enter the and whisper to them as well as the armed robbers.
The church members who are only bent on seeing an end to the investigation to get their money are frequently being told to wait outside. But worst of all, the investigating officer, one Mr. J. K. Flomo, head of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has said that the police now intend to forward the case to the court without disclosing the findings of the investigation including the whereabouts of the money.
According to several of the motorcyclists, the police has been threatening them against providing testimonies about their involvement (police) by calling them on phone number already supplied them during the investigation. The cyclists say the police upon getting the money from the robbers in Neezoe, initially drove into the community and spent a long time there, for reasons best known to themselves, and finally returned along with the second robber without the one who had snatched the money bag.
They also maintain that it was only this second robber that was taken to the Jacob's town/Lone Star Police depot before he was finally transferred to the Central Police Headquarters on Capitol Hill, where the bag snatching robber later arrived without any explanation by the police as to where he (the robber) had been.
At the Central, the initial investigators, who identified themselves by nicknames to the church members and cyclists as "419" and "Dynamite" respectively, urged them to return the next day when night was far advanced at about 9:30 PM.
Subsequent investigations have been business as usual, questioning the cyclists and church people to show who actually received the moneybag without pointing the questions to the robbers whose small gun that takes single-barrel shots was also with them without any indication of the moneybag's whereabouts.
Officers at the National Police headquarters under investigation of Commander J. K. Flomo of the CID are insisting that they do not have over US$14,022.00 and 8,580.00 LD$ along with other identity cards, 2 cell phones along with other personal effects that were retrieved in the presence of numerous eyewitnesses and motorcyclists who had pursued the two Nigerians robbers.
According to the treasurer of the Christian Revival Fellowship Association (CRCA), the umbrella body overseeing the Christian Revival Churches of Liberia, Ms. Dawoso K. Gayflor, she had withdrawn the amounts on three checks from the Association account at the International Bank on Broad Street to enable her pay church workers and ongoing project expenses of the church.
She said little did she know that the two Nigerians were tailing her up to the old worship venue of the Winners Chapel on 12th Street. There and then, the two robbers descended from their motorbike and in Nigerian Movie style demanded at gun-point that Dawoso hand over her handbag. With a sharp bladed knife also pointed at her neck, the treasurer readily handed over the handbag as the robbers also fired a warning shot to instill fear in on-lookers who intended to take contrary moves against them.
After taking the handbag, the robbers started speeding towards Downtown Monrovia over a motorbike. The distraught Dawoso weeping as she narrated her mishap to motorcyclists, who were already pulled to the drama scene on account of the warning shot, started in hot pursuit of the robbers.
The chase proceeded along the Plumkor road then onto the Tubman Boulevard before Total Gas Station, then unto the Mansion, down to UN Drive up to the Antoinette Tubman Stadium back to Camp Johnson Road, up to Horton Avenue before the LACE Building, up before the Cellcom main office on By-Pass, then to Benson Street, Carey Street, then Broad Street and Johnson Street intersection, where another warning shot was fired.
The chase continued to Freeport (where another warning shot was fired), up to Jamaica Road Junction (another warning shot) back to Freeport, (another firing shot at Cemenco junction) u-turn to Jamaica Road then unto the Freeway then a longer chase unto Neezoe, where the motorcyclists and the (now involved) police overcame the robbers. At this point, the approaching motorcyclists attempt to capture the robber with the handbag and gun, led to the robber plunging the barrel of the gun into the arm of a cyclist's hand inflicting serious injury upon him.
The rest of the cyclists, who were now on pursuing the handbag carrying robber on foot into Neezoe, report that the complete exhausted robber threw the handbag unto the police, who took possession of it and got in the car. Already, second robber who had been apprehended as well as the retrieved gun, was in the patrol car.
The bag snatching robber was also captured and placed in the car. But when the car return from the community, the police only had the second robber in the car but did not disclose what was purpose of the session that they had with the robbers in Neezoe.
Both the motorcyclists and other onlookers or eyewitnesses corroborate that they saw the robber throwing the moneybag to the police into the police vehicle without ever saying anything on the scene that they did not see anything with the robbers.
The conflicting statement from the police against the preponderant testimonies of the motorcyclists and the on-lookers only served to annoy the sizeable membership of the Monrovia Christian Revival Church, including Judge Korboi Nuta, who was also present at the Central during the hearings.
But the dilemma is while the police are keeping the robbers in custody, they insist that they did not see any money with them even though they cannot outrightly release them, knowing the ordeal of hot pursuit in which they were involved. These dilemmas with which the police are faced according to some onlookers only send a negative reading as to the entire reform effort by the international community.
Despite the revamping of the institution, the police, as a key tier of the rule of law in the country still manifest no positive sign of genuine renewal for service to the citizens of Liberia. The amount involved is mouthwatering and enticing into doing injustice such that they cannot easily let go and are therefore playing game of wait and see to determine the weight of the church.
The good governance that the international community seeks for Liberia is doomed as long officers of the police cannot enforce the law but wait to take possession of ill-gotten goods from criminals. The money must be produced and done so with some urgency because the church is paying taxes through the efforts of the workers and provided services to other Liberians in fulfilling its spiritual mandate of catering to God's children.
According to a member of the church, who attended the series of hearings, the police seem to display recalcitrance towards any fair disclosure. This is to say that if they continue to insist that they did not have the bag and not sufficient pressure is put on them by demonstrating that they took the moneybag, they may well go free with the amount involved.
But as God lives, the church has sworn that God's intervention as well as the government's and the international community's are essential to the surrendering of this huge amount of money that would go down the throat of faceless individuals pretending to be law enforcers.
Meanwhile, members of the church are appealing to the Ministry of Justice, the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Ambassadors of the United States of America, ECOWAS, the African Union, the European Union, Nigeria and the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ellen Margrete Loj to speedily intervene in pressuring the police to return the money without subtraction, depreciation or reduction to the rightful institution (the Christian Revival Association (CRCA located on 13th Street Cheeseman Avenue in Sinkor).
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