The police in Bauchi say they have arrested some suspects in connection with the assassination threat against Yakubu Dogora, a former speaker House of Representatives, and three others.
Umar Mamman Sanda, the Commissioner of Police (CP), in charge of Bauchi command, who disclosed this to journalists, while reacting to Dogara’s letter to the IGP, said investigation is ongoing on the matter.
Sanda posited that the allegations that the Bauchi Police command did not do anything on the matter were not true, as the police have launched discreet investigation into the incident.
Speaking in an audio clip in Hausa, the CP said, “What happened is that, we received discreet information that there are some of our officers, one of our police officers was attempting to sell a rifle, so we went after him”.
According to CP Sanda, “initially we have received prior information that he was carrying the rifles inside his car, we went after him, we got him and asked about the owner of the car and he said he is the owner, we searched the car and we discovered the guns”.
“When we enquired to know the person that gave him the guns and what he intended to do with them, he confessed that he wanted to sell it. We now asked him, is it our own rifles that you want to sell? And he said yes, so we arrested him and started an investigation”, the CP explained.
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Sanda said in the cause of investigation, the suspect implicated one other person, and added that in continuation of investigation of the first person.
“On continuation of our investigation, he said it was someone in Tafawa Balewa who approached him that he was looking for a rifle to buy and that is what prompted him to carry those guns. When he mentioned the name of the person, we went and arrested him”, he added.
The CP stated, “When we arrested him, he confessed to us that it was true that he was looking for a rifle to buy because something terrible happened to him, that his house and those of others were burned during the last December 2021 incident that occurred following the Baba Peter Gonto memorial anniversary”.
He further said the suspect mentioned names of some people, including that of the former Speaker in connection to the incident, (burning of their houses) which he attributed to the reason behind his plot against the former speaker.
“We have launched an investigation in that regard”. One thing with human beings is, if he is guilty, he would not want to admit until you use wisdom, so we have intensified our investigations”, the CP Sanda said.
“And on the missing rifle in our armoury, I directed that our armoury be audited and in the cause of auditing, we discovered that apart from the two rifles we intercepted, some were not in the armoury and so we have expanded our investigations”, the CP added.
According to him, “Now that I am talking to you, our armoury officer who retired two years ago has been arrested, he is in our custody”.
The CP, however, said that, “We were still investigating when we saw that he had written to the IGP alleging that we didn’t call to inform him. I can tell you, if not because of what that man said, he would not discover any statement from another person that his life is at stake”.
The CP added that apart from what the man said, that he was looking for a rifle to kill the former speaker, no other suspect has corroborated his confession, adding that the police would not want to start giving information to people while it has not completed its investigation.
“We will complete our investigations and we are on it, by the grace of God we will tell the world the outcome of the investigation once we are through with it, there is nothing to hide in it”, he assured.
He said that the state command has reached where it is now on the matter due to its doggedness and resilience, expressing hope that the citizens will give the police time to complete its investigation.
“The letter indicated that we have not done anything seeing that his life has been exposed to danger, that’s not how it is”.
Sanda, who acknowledged that the former speaker has the right to petition the IGP, added that, “we are not saying it is wrong but for him to say that the police did not do the needful or cautioned him, that his life is in danger, is not how it should be. We are yet to confirm the claim because it came from only one person and we have not found confirmation or corroboration that the threat is true”.
“So, we have handed over the investigation to experts in handling of armoury and murder investigators to do the proper thing, they are the ones to tell us that the threat to kill the former speaker as confessed by the other suspect is true”, he added.
The police chief assured that any of the suspects found guilty after the completion of investigation would be charged to court and the police will inform the world about what really happened.
