The British government has said it cannot disclose information on immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim, who has reportedly sought asylum in the country.<\/p>\n
The United Kingdom Home Office told Pointblanknews.com that Section 40(5) of its Freedom of Information (FOI) Act forbade it from supplying information on Ringim, who relocated to the UK in wake of his removal as IG.<\/p>\n
According to the Home Office, disclosing Ringim’s residency status in the UK, as requested by Pointblanknews.com, would breach\u00a0 “data protection principles” of the FOI Act.
\nThe office however cautioned that the refusal to disclose information on the former police boss shouldn’t be misconstrued as not having the said information.<\/p>\n
The Home office response read in part:<\/p>\n
“In response to your request for information on the above named, we neither confirm nor deny whether we hold the information you have requested.<\/p>\n
“Section 40(5) of the FOI Act absolves us from the requirement to say whether or not we hold information, where to do so would contravene any of the data protection principles.<\/p>\n
“This response should not be taken as conclusive evidence that the information you have requested is or is not held by the (Home) office.”<\/p>\n
The clarification was authored by the Information Access Team of the UK Home Office on Marsham street, London.<\/p>\n
Daily Sun newspaper had in March broken the story that Ringim had sought asylum in the UK, out of fear that his safety might not be guaranteed in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The former police boss had fired back, saying he was officially in the UK as a resident, and therefore could not have sought asylum. He held he was not on the run, and was actually in Nigeria two months prior to the story.<\/p>\n
Under Ringim, terrorists had a free reign, killing hundreds of Nigerians in coordinated attacks on such public buildings as the United Nations’
\noffice, police headquarters, and Eagle Square-\u00a0 all in Abuja.<\/p>\n
Hundreds more died when the same terrorists bombed dozens of churches in several parts of the north.<\/p>\n
On June 16, 2011, the former police boss escaped death by the whiskers when minutes after alighting from his official car, a bomb-laden car exploded beside his, searing through the police headquarters.<\/p>\n
The bomb-laden car, according to eye-witnesses, formed part of Ringim’s motorcade into the police headquarters, but exploded seconds after the former police boss left the scene.<\/p>\n
This fuelled speculations that Ringim may have been privy to the bombing.<\/p>\n
Security sources told Pointblanknews.com that the former police chief amassed a fortune through shady security contracts. He was said to have exploited his closeness to President Goodluck Jonathan to get approvals on mouth-watering security contracts.<\/p>\n
One security source told Pointblanknews.com that Ringim resides in the UK, but is a big player in the property market in the UAE.<\/p>\n
“He (Ringim) shuttles between London and Dubai where he has vast investments in real estate. He may be the richest IG yet.<\/p>\n
“The funny thing is that Hafiz is very loquacious. Periodically, he would call friends in Nigeria and deride them for staying back like the legendary Andrew, to fix Nigeria,” the source added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The British government has said it cannot disclose information on immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim, who has reportedly sought asylum in the country. The United Kingdom Home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n