Argument over Offa robbery
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
A new episode in the alleged involvement Bukola Saraki, Senate president with suspects arrested for the deadly robbery in Offa, Keats State is on. In the latest episode, Ibrahim Idris, inspector general of police is asking Saraki to present himself for questioning. The police says that
apart from one of the vehicles used for the operation bearing a branded number plate of Saraki, the suspects have made confessional statements indicting the Senate president.
It says that they claim that the politician is their sponsor. The suspects, according to the police , said he gave them weapons and ammunition to carry out the operation.
The IGP has therefore, in a letter of invitation, asked the Senate president to report to the head of the Force Intelligence Response Team at Guzape, Abuja on Tuesday. The robbery incident which was carried out last April recorded 31 casualties.
But the Senate president said the invitation was not a professional move with a purpose to crack a crime. Rather it said the police chief was merely playing politics under the guise of investigating a crime. He said. “I have been reliably informed that the police invitation was planned by the IG as a ploy to stop an alleged plan by some Senators and House of Representatives members from defecting from the All Progressives Congress (APC). It was also said that if I was detained between Tuesday and Wednesday, that will abort the so-called defection plan”.
Saraki went further to claim that the director of public prosecution at the federal level had in response to the legal opinion sought by the police told them that his office could not establish any link between his person (Saraki) and the operation or the suspects to warrant filling a case against him.
If truly the director of prosecution gave that advice in June, then it must be after Saraki responded in writing to earlier questions raised on the issue by the police. Could it be that the force stumbled on a fresh evidence? While answering reporters’ questions when they were paraded by the police shortly after their arrest, the suspects said Saraki was not aware they were into robbery. Were they covering him up then or the police is mixing politics with crime investigations?
