Fake Police Officer Nabbed - SSCE Results In Doubt

By Tunde Busari

Theresa

HER frame well fitted the police prerequisites for recruitment: she is tall, athletic and assertive. These natural qualities perhaps were what informed the policeman father of Theresa to insist that she must join the force by all means.

Knowing full well that her father does not threaten his children, but when he does, it is with such ferocity that none of his children can stand, even if Theresa did not like her father's directive, she still would not have been able to do anything about it.

She, therefore, complied as an obedient child. While much more interested applicants were struggling with tears to have their names short listed for the six-month training at Police College, Theresa, however, had no problem in taking a place among the lucky ones in Iperu Police College in Ogun State in 2004.

The 25-year-old, soft-spoken Theresa settled down in the college and was doing well in her squad, leaving no one in doubt that, indeed, she was an offspring of a policeman. She was always ahead of her mates in grasping the elementary skills in policing.

But towards the tail end of the training, the unthinkable happened. How it happened still remains a mystery to Theresa who, like others, was already counting the number of days left for her to become a full-fledged cadet corporal.

The college conducted a random screening exercise. Alas! Theresa was found to have fallen below the acceptable standard of an average cadet. She could not make a simple sentence in English on paper. She was fired! She was immediately sent out of the college.
"Yes, it is true. They just asked me to write something on the paper; they said I couldn't write and I should go. That was how I parked my bags and left the college. My father was angry when he heard of it. He then said I should not move near him again," Theresa told Saturday Tribune.

Again, as an obedient child, Theresa took to her father's words and started to fend for herself. She secured an apartment at Saint Stephen area, Mokola, Ibadan and also secured a job as factory worker at Energy Foods Company Limited, an Ibadan-based biscuit baking company.

With her meagre monthly salary of N3,500, she was moving on with her life until a protracted sickness took her away from the work. For eight weeks, she was bedridden. She was, however, lucky to have survived it. Theresa was full of praise that she recovered, so it was time to return to work.

"When I went back to EFCO to start work again, they said they had put somebody else in my place. We used to count biscuits. I begged them to sympathise with me, they didn't listen to me. I then became jobless and returned home," said Theresa, the only child of her single mother resident in Cross Rivers.

Faced with the harsh reality of unemployment, Theresa's life went from bad to worse. Hunger became her companion day and night. Yet, her mind continued to work some possible ways out of penury and lack. Suddenly, she had a brainwave!

"I just looked for my uniforms and wore it. People didn't suspect anything. On September 7 (2007), I just went to Moniya (Divisional Police Headquarters). When I got there, I said I wanted to see the DPO (Divisional Police Officer). I told them I was transferred from Osun State to the station.

"They said the DPO was not around, and that I should wait. I waited, but when he did not come in time, I told them I had to go. I then asked one officer to help me with transport money. He said I should go and join others at nearby junction where they were patrolling. So, I went there to join them. Later in the day, they gave me N400."

The police, however, punctured the claim. They argued that she was such a daring one that she on her own found her way to the junction impersonating as traffic warden.

"It was one officer who suspected her and asked her questions which she could not answer well. The officer then took her to the station to effect her arrest," the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) told Saturday Tribune.

Theresa confirmed how she was arrested and taken to the station, where she confessed and how she was dismissed from Police College and became jobless. Her confession sent jitters down the spine of the rank and file who lamented that they might have been fooled in the past.

Because of the magnitude of the crime, a signal was sent to the office of the Commissioner of Police at Eleyele, CP Udom-Ekpoudom, who ordered that Theresa be brought before him.

Having interrogated her, the commissioner also ordered a search of her residence. In the end, a pair of Police uniforms with corporal's rank bearing F/No. 08255, an enlarged photograph of Theresa in police uniform and several other photographs were recovered.

While the investigation continues, Saturday Tribune observes that the reason adduced for her dismissal from police college needs to be further analysed.

This is more expedient given the high grade Theresa recorded in her Senior Secondary Certificate Examination .

"I wrote the examination in 2003 and I had eight credits," she said. Eight credits, including English Language, speaks a lot for Theresa, who might have equally forged the results or may be concealing the actual reason she was thrown out of the Police College.