IGP compromising my personal security, Saraki alleges

Senate president, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, has accused Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, of compromising his personal security and endangering his life and called on Nigerians to hold Idris responsible should anything befall members of his family and himself.

Addressing an emergency press conference at the PDP Presidential Campaign Office (Legacy House) in Abuja yesterday evening, Saraki alleged that the police is showing undisguised hostility to him and his supporters. He listed some cases that showed that the Police are after him for the wrong reasons. “Yesterday, (Thursday) after the APC concluded their campaigns in Ilorin, some of their supporters and thugs moved around town and in areas like Adewole/Adeta, Ile Otan and Ubandawaki/Pakata where they saw our people gathered holding their weekly ward meetings, they disrupted the meetings by shouting their party slogan and when our people responded by mentioning our own slogan, they fired gun shots into their midst. They also inflicted machete cuts on some of them and two people suffered bullet wounds”

“Also yesterday, these same APC thugs shielded by policemen went to my family quarters in Agbaji in Ilorin, and vandalized houses, shops and inflicted wounds with machete on three people. All these destructions took place in the presence of policemen who came with them but watched without any care, as the thugs unleashed violence on our people. For me, personally, I believe the decision to attack people and properties in my family ancestral compound are a direct affront and attack on my person.”

According to him, “The same Police under the directive of Idris yesterday commenced the transfer of DPOs out of Kwara State. While the police are free to take decisions on the deployment of their personnel, we found the postings in Kwara strange and more than a mere coincidence”

Saraki also drew attention to the fact that Idris has posted three different Commissioners to Kwara State in the last six months. In fact, the previous and current Commissioner of Police in the State got strict instructions from the IGP not to relate or engage with the Senate President. The usual practice has been that the Commissioner of Police personally ensures the security of the Senate President whenever he visits.

“We need to make it clear to the entire world that now that campaigns is about to begin in the state and I am set to participate in that grassroots campaign as I have always done, nobody is sure what instructions Mr. Idris has given to the police command in the state. Thus, the entire world should hold the IGP responsible if anything untoward happens to members of my family and myself”

He recalled “before now, this same IGP has tried several tricks to implicate me in some criminal charges. First, he arrested some cultists and was about to compel them to claim they worked for me. We exposed the trick and the media also pointed out holes in his story. He quickly withdrew that. Later, he went on to the Offa robbery case and politicized the investigation in order to rope me. In the process of forcing suspects to implicate me, the principal suspect died in their custody. He has also not succeeded with that plot. Who knows what else he may have planned. Now, that full campaign is on, which requires my going round, I want the world to hold him personally responsible if anything happens to me.”