AG’s Report Should Stand
BY TAIWO FAROTIMI
The summon by the office of the Inspector general of police, Ibrahim Idris to Dr. Bukola Saraki, president of the Senate on the Offa robbery investigations is in disregard of a legal advice from the office of the attorney general of the federation. And that explains the reason Dr. Saraki decided to ignore the summon. In our story on the summon last Tuesday July 24,2018, we hinted that the Senate president’s suspicion of police invitation was based on the clearance by the office of the attorney general.
We can now authoritatively report that Abubakar Malami, the attorney general had in a letter dated June 22, 2018 advised Mr. Idris that going by the report of investigations, which included the confessional statements of the suspects in the Offa robbery case, there was not enough evidence to institute a charge in court against Saraki, Governor Abdulfattah Ahmed of Kwara State and even Yusuf Abdulwahab, Governor Ahmed’s chief of staff, as according to Malami ” no evidence is credible enough to sustain any charge based on any offence known to law against him.”
The robbery operation earlier in April, which affected five banks in Offa, Kwara State left 31 persons dead.
The police invited Saraki for questioning after it was discovered that a car he gifted one of the robbery suspects was used in the operation, with his branded number plate. But the suspects had said that though they were political thugs who minister to the Senate president, Saraki neither sent them on operation nor did he know about that aspect of them. The issue raised public interest when some of the suspects were shown in photographs of the visit to the Offa traditional ruler by Saraki after the incident.
But Mr. Malami had advised Mr. Idris that the interim report sent to him by the police did not establish any nexus between Mr. Saraki and Mr. Ahmed on one side and the suspects on the other. The attorney general advised the inspector general of police to do a more painstaking investigation before he could bring up charges against the men.
It is apparent that the two principal persons in tango over the matter are reading the report from the attorney general’s office differently. While Mr. Saraki appears to understand the advice from Mr. Malami to imply a closure of the case, Mr. Idris seems to see it as a challenge to dig further and get evidence that could be used for a credible charge. The interim report would also have included Mr. Saraki’s response to issues raised by the police then. The police questions apparently issued from their findings and statements of the suspects. However, Mr. Idris did not indicate if the so called confessional statements implicating Mr. Saraki are different from the ones included in his interim report on which Mr. Malami based his advice.
