ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) – Brought to a high court in handcuffs, a former Nigerian police chief pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of stealing tens of millions of dollars from state coffers and extorting money from a major bank.

A judge read former Inspector General Tafa Balogun 70 charges of theft, money laundering and extortion. In total, he was accused of stealing and extorting more than $97 million.

Balogun resigned March 6 after being accused of corruption by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and was arrested at his Lagos home last week. His troubles came amid other anti-graft measures by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, including the sacking of Education Minister Fabian Osuji, accused of bribing top lawmakers to increase his ministry’s annual budget.

Balogun was charged with pilfering money from the police force, and spending much of it on shares and on upmarket Lagos properties. One of the charges alleged he had threatened to withdraw police guards from the head office of Societe Generale Bank Nigeria, forcing the bank to pay him a 30 million naira (US$224,000; euro174,000) bribe.

Nigeria’s new police chief, Sunday Ehindero, has pledged to crack down on corruption in the police force, but ordinary Nigerians still have to face daily demands for bribes from armed police at roadblocks throughout major cities. Nigeria’s police are accused of scores of extra-judicial killings every year, including shootings of people who refuse to pay small bribes.

Oil-rich Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is regularly ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world by Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International.

Obasanjo’s promises to fight graft have failed to lead to the conviction of a single senior official since he came to power in 1999, in polls which ended 15 years of military rule.