The police command in Kogi State has described as fake, the allegation making the rounds that the state’s Commissioner of Police, Bethrand Onuoha, is planning an attack on the supporters of Social Democratic Party, SDP, gubernatorial candidate, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka.
The allegation was said to have been made by the director of communication of the campaign organisation of Ajaka.
In a press statement by the Public Relations Officer of the command, SP William Ovye Aya, the Commissioner of Police urged the public to disregard the allegations on the purported planned attack on Ajaka supporters in Kogi State.
He said the police were irrevocably committed to providing a level-playing ground for all political parties in the state.
The command said the allegation was totally false, malicious, pretentious, and highly mischievous.
The command warned that the Commissioner of Police who upon assumption of duty one month ago had so far demonstrated a high level of professionalism by providing a level playing ground for all political parties and their candidates to operate in the state, should not be dragged into politics.
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The statement reads: “The candidate and his campaign organisation should leave the Police alone and focus on issues-based campaigns and soliciting for support from the electorate instead of resorting to cheap blackmail, bullying and arm-twisting for political sympathy from the public who already know their tricks, gimmicks and antecedents. The entire narrative to injure, assassinate and malign the hard-earned reputation and integrity of the Commissioner of Police is the height of insensitivity, callousness, self-serving and emblematic of desperation, vindictiveness, a propensity for destructiveness and to salivate the insidious and vaulting political ambition of a psychopath.
“It would be recalled that on 3rd June, 2023 along Abuja-Lokoja road, the SDP candidate, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka, and his supporters blocked and attacked the convoy of the Executive Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, at Banda some kilometres away from Lokoja. During the attack, some of the governor’s aides sustained varying degrees of injuries. All efforts, invitations and entreaties to come and give his own side of the incident has come to nought. Yet he has been moving around the nooks and crannies of the state without any molestation even when he has no immunity. The case is still under investigation.
“In a democracy, freedom of expression is a right, but it must be accompanied by responsibility, not to hide under its guise to spin out lies, falsehood, innuendos and sensationalism. It shows the writer and his sponsors have no decorum, decency, intellect, and are oblivious of the legal consequences of deformation and assassination of character.
“The Commissioner of Police hereby appeals to Murtala Yakubu Ajaka and his Campaign Organisation to leave him alone, stop all the negative write-ups and frivolous allegations aimed at under-mining the spirited crime-fighting efforts of the Police in Kogi State and whipping up sentiment against them and heating up the state for no just cause.
“And to the good and peace loving, highly enlightened, politically sophisticated citizens of Kogi State, the Commissioner of Police urges you all to disregard and discountenance such mischievous and malicious information, and to be wary of being hoodwinked by merchants of violence, but instead gravitate towards issues that unite the state rather than those that divide you, please.”
