Immediate
past Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Hafiz Ringim, may be
seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, Daily Sun has learnt.
Shortly after his sack on January 25,
2012, Ringim quietly relocated to the UK and has not stepped foot on
Nigerian soil, family sources said. Daily Sun gathered that Ringim’s
application for asylum is before the UK Border Agency.
The former police chief’s request is
reportedly anchored on fears that Islamic militants, Boko Haram, may
kill him should he return to Nigeria. Ringim reportedly told the agency
that his lucky escape in the June 2011 bombing of the Force Headquarters
in Abuja, by Boko Haram, a few days after he threatened in Maiduguri,
Borno State, to crush the group, fuelled fears he was a prime target.
The ex-IGP was also said to have drawn
the attention of the British officials to the June 6, 2011 murder of his
deputy in office, Alhaji Abubakar Ningi. Also killed in the attack were
Ningi’s police orderly and driver. Boko Haram claimed responsibility
for the killings. Sources said that he informed the British agency that
former military chiefs have not been spared by the Islamic militants.
He reportedly cited the November 2012
murder of a civil war combatant, General Mamman Shuwa. Ringim, under
whose tenure the United Nations’ office in Abuja was bombed, reportedly
told the UK officials that returning to Nigeria was akin to sending him
to certain death.
Close friends and associates of the
former police boss told Daily Sun that Ringim was happier living in the
UK. “The sleepless nights Hafiz had because of Boko Haram shot up his
blood pressure. His health deteriorated so fast that some of us were
relieved the moment he was asked to go.”
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